Q&A: Should Translation Technology Become a Pharmacy Standard?

With staggering statistics regarding poor outcomes and increased mortality due to medication nonadherence, the pharmacist’s role in ensuring patients are properly understanding their regimens has never been more crucial. Whilst drug manufacturers and organizations like the FDA provide thorough reviews before offering patients a therapy, the labels on a prescription may be more of an afterthought.

“The industry would never accept ‘close enough’ on the controlled substance count or an active ingredient’s potency,” Sharon Blank, CEO of RxTran and Language Scientific, told Drug Topics.® “They both have to be exact and verified. The instructions telling a patient how to take that same drug should be held to the same standard.”

In part 2 of our chat with Blank, she dives deeper into some of the core challenges among patients with limited English proficiency (LEP), how to move forward within the pharmacy industry, and the massive role technology is persistently playing to bolster outcomes.

READ MORE: Language Barriers in Pharmacy Create Serious Safety Risks

Drug Topics: Why do you believe that “language on a prescription label deserves the same zero-tolerance standard the industry already demands for the drug itself,” and how does the industry get to that point?

Sharon Blank: The industry would never accept ‘close enough’ on the controlled substance count or an active ingredient’s potency. They both have to be exact and verified. The instructions telling a patient how to take that same drug should be held to the same standard. Let’s take a simple example: if 1 teaspoon 3 times a day gets mistranslated as 3 tablespoons once daily, a single 5-milliliter dose turns into a 45-milliliter dose, 9 times what the prescriber intended, that can very seriously harm a patient.

Getting there takes 4 things. First, the translation has to be checked by a licensed pharmacist who actually speaks the language, not just a general translator or an AI tool. Then second, it should come from a controlled library, so not just typing a string of text but instructions need to be pre-approved. Third, it needs to be built right into the pharmacy software. As I mentioned, this will significantly lessen the burden on the pharmacy flow. And lastly, it has to cover the languages patients really speak, not just a handful that look good in a brochure but that really cover any pharmacy’s language population.

Drug Topics: What support are pharmacists primed to deliver to improve language barriers, and what kind of support is needed on a grander scale that pharmacists aren’t yet positioned to address?

Sharon Blank: Pharmacists are very well positioned to notice the gaps and to counsel. They’re the ones at the counter and watching the patient take the pill bottle from them and just kind of nodding along, knowing full well that there’s very limited comprehension and understanding. [Pharmacists] see that, they notice it, it’s happening, but what they’re not positioned to do, and shouldn’t be expected to do, is to generate a validated translation in real time themselves. It’s not fair to ask of someone who’s first off extremely busy and tight on time but also just not in their area of expertise.

The bigger fix has to come from technology, having a verified translation that gets built right into the pharmacy system, so the correct answer is just what prints on the label. There is no need to think and second guess or question what is being delivered and printed. It also needs industry-wide alignment. We need a solution validated under one state’s framework so it’s not being piecemealed from pharmacy to pharmacy, location by location, chain by chain, but rather having total state mandated adherence.

READ MORE: Public Health Resource Center