Video Oct 28, 2021

MotionPoint Webinar: Spanish Website Translation for Healthcare Organizations

Intro

I’d like to welcome you to our “Spanish Website Translation for Healthcare Organizations Webinar”.

It’s an honor to have you all here. We will be using our time together sharing valuable information that you can use to generate significant value to your business.

This webinar is by no means a “one woman show”, so first I want to thank my wonderful team who helped make today a reality, especially Sheila and Dominic for their support and dedication to bringing high quality content to you today.

So… For those of you who haven’t met me yet, I am Veronica Pastuch, EVP of Translation Operations here at MotionPoint. I’ve worked in the language and localization industries for over 18 years, 16 of them helping localize over 1500 websites and working with countless fortune 500 customers.

In case you were wondering where my is accent is from… well… I was born & raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I moved to the US about 20 years ago to continue my education and to build a career that combines my passion of languages, technology, and social sciences.

So yes, as a bonus… I am a Hispanic immigrant in the US who has also experienced the challenges that we’ll talk about today, particularly when navigating the healthcare services system that… is quite different than that of Latin America.

I am super excited to be sharing information with you today that’s very near and dear to my heart so my intention for this webinar is that you leave informed and empowered to make decisions that will bring significant value to your companies and personally to your careers.

We will be recording this webinar and we’ll send you all the materials discussed today, and of you have any questions we’ll be addressing them at the end so please write them in the chat.

…now you can relax and enjoy… and don’t worry about taking notes.

Slide 2:

First, we will be learning

Why Spanish speakers are dissatisfied with the healthcare information available to them

• Also, where Hispanic populations with limited English ability are skyrocketing in the US
• We will be covering the opportunity cost of not translating into Spanish
• As well as federal language compliance guidelines for hospitals and health care insurers
• And finally, the business impact of translating websites into Spanish

So, let’s get to it! There’s a lot to cover.

Slide 3:

First… let’s explore why Spanish speakers are an underserved market.

Simply said, there isn’t enough key information in Spanish from healthcare organizations and the fact is that the US Hispanic population continues to grow.

This is a culture that values their heritage and language, and that will remain in the US for a long time.

In fact, 60.5 million Hispanics live in the u.s.¹

That means that 19% of the US population is or has Hispanic heritage… and almost all of them (95%) believe it’s important for future generations to speak Spanish.

In the last 10 years, this segment of the population has grown 19% on average, and actually 26% in the U.S. south alone.

When asked about their preferences,

95% of Hispanics say it’s important that future generations speak Spanish³

And they mean what they say, when we see that 80% of second-generation Hispanics speak fluent Spanish and that 73% of US Hispanics speak Spanish at home⁴

However, the data also shows that the need is also significant, as

One-third of Hispanics speak English less than “very well” or at all. This means just under 20 million US Hispanics cannot consume English content online.

Slide 4

The opportunity to better serve the Hispanic market is there, particularly because Hispanics have the highest uninsured rates of any racial or ethnic group in the United States.

Let’s think about this for a moment

• 20% of Hispanics under the age of 65
  have no health insurance coverage¹
• And nearly 10% of Hispanic children are uninsured

This translates into:

• Hispanics being less likely to have had a healthcare visit within the past 2 years

Slide 5

So, what happens when Hispanics do not have access to information in Spanish?  Well… they have

• Less access to preventative care
• Difficulty understanding instructions, health information, or using scheduling tools
• And this can affect their ability to maintain good health and to adhere to medication regimens

According to the national institute of health, nearly 50% of patients who aren’t fluent in English have difficulty engaging in complex disease management and self-care compared to 14% of English speakers that have the same problem.

Slide 6

The federal government is catching up to these statistics, and legislation is growing in this area.

The US has implemented language assistance programs to provide individuals that are not fluent in English with the opportunity to participate in their programs, and the law requires entities to provide spoken and written language assistance.

This makes website translation for the healthcare industry a necessity. Since websites are utilized as first-touch points to offer vital information to patients.

The best way to begin the healthcare translation journey is to identify your patient community.

Each organization is unique and serves different patient populations.

We really have an opportunity here to get ahead of the curve and be the first ones to solve this business challenge.

Slide 7

So here is some insider information you won’t find anywhere else…

We looked at the data we’ve recorded from our healthcare customers over the past year, and we’ve noticed that

• Healthcare organizations saw a 30% YoY increase in web traffic to translated sites.
• And that Spanish language users generate more on-site engagement than English users.
• Also, patients are better educated on health matters and are more satisfied with their providers

40% of individuals who are not fluent in English would not transact on sites that aren’t translated.

website translation is critical because it gives you access to an untapped pool of customers, as well as increased engagement and their satisfaction with the services you have to offer.

Slide 8

So…. What is the business impact? Superior patient care.

We all know that the pandemic accelerated digital transformation by several years. People who were not as engaged in the digital world are more engaged now… (who would have thought our 80-year-old grandmas would be doing zoom calls!!!).

The reality is that by translating your website into Spanish you gain instant access to the second largest Spanish-speaking market in the world (Mexico with 127m is #1).

This means

• More mobile app and website engagement
• Translation creates loyalty. (75% of healthcare patients are loyal to companies that offer Spanish content)
• Patients are more likely to pay online when experiences are in their language.

The bottom line is… superior patient care in Spanish gets exposure to a very large, untapped population group… and that translates into:

• New customers
• Increased customer retention
• And increased revenue

Slide 9

But… website translation is hard as it needs to marry translation and technology very well.

• Buying linguistic and cultural fluency is challenging, but it can be done
• Fluency in technology and a seamless combination of the two… that’s much harder to find

That’s because websites are becoming more and more complex, and technology needs to be able to:

• Detect and capture all the content for translation
• Be compatible with apps and dynamic content
• Create a flawless user experience, that’s fully functional
• Must meet stringent security standards
• Must incorporate workflows that allow for rapid access of the content for the translation team to be able to meet short turnaround times

Slide 10

Much of the complexity in translating websites for healthcare organizations has to do with the technical aspect of it.

While on the surface it may appear simple because what we see are elements like html, images, and documents, there is a whole different world underneath that requires a strong technology capable of handling:

• Multiple tech stacks
• Varied content sources and embedded tech like Ajax and JSON
• Secure applications
• And progressive web apps

And we need to do all of that while ensuring that the user experience is flawless:

• The text alignment needs to be right (as many languages are longer than English and the text tends to wrap on the page)
• Navigation must be maintained
• Metadata needs to be translated
• On site search must work in the new language
• And on top of that, we want to be able to localize and customize to the customer’s preference

Slide 11

What have we learned from what our healthcare customers are telling us?

It’s that what they need help the most with is their ability to capture content from all these complex technologies.

And there are several ways that they prefer to do so. Some find that

• Proxy technology is a great fit, because it enables them to have a fully functional translated website in Spanish with virtually no effort upfront or ongoing

Others prefer to use

• CMS connectors – for a customizable and scalable translation management

Or

• Flexible APIs to leverage translated content for on-site and multichannel use

 

Slide 12

My recommendation is that when selecting a vendor, you look for things such as:

• Airtight security and that is HIPAA compliant
• Content detection – you want to make sure that all the content (but only the content that needs to be translated) is captured
• That it provides a fully functional language experience with:
  • Intelligent language detection
  • Localized on site search
  • Global site maps
  • URL translation
• And that allows you and your team the flexibility to be part of the translation workflow with easy to use editorial and localization tools

 

Slide 13

MotionPoint has been doing this for the past 20+ years and we have been supporting

5 out of the 10 top US healthcare insurers offering an enterprise solution to translate websites, portals, images, videos, documents, apps and more

Finally …. Here are the most common questions that we hear from our customers and prospects regarding website translation into Spanish.

It’s been an absolute pleasure having you here today, so now I welcome any questions you may have.