Three Virginia Tech students have designed a tool to help English-speaking dentists communicate better with Spanish-speaking patients.
In a booth at Roanoke's Bradley Free Clinic, dentist Megan Milburn has access to the tools of the trade: tweezers, a probe, a mouth mirror — and a computer screen, with a list of commonly used phrases to communicate with patients.
Milburn touches a box with one of the phrases, which triggers a Spanish translation. This is a new tool the free clinic's dental wing is using to communicate with Spanish-speaking patients.
"So those we can just kind of have open for the whole appointment," Milburn says. "For cleanings, it goes over their periodontal status. For patents with gingivitis, with periodontal disease, bone loss. And it talks about after they get a cleaning, what to do."
The translation page was developed by a biodesign team of three Virginia Tech engineering students. They're part of a partnership between Tech and Carilion Clinic that pairs engineering students with people with more clinical background.
They spent the first part of the project observing Roanoke Memorial Hospital, rural clinics in Franklin and Rockbridge counties, and the Bradley Free Clinic. They watched and looked for ways to make a difference.
"We were shadowing at Bradley Free Clinic, and that's what we observed, that language barrier was one of the major concerns, major problems, both for patients [and] physicians," says Mahrukh Siddiqui, one of the students. "Not being able to communicate at all, and being stressed about that, really just felt very strongly to all of us that this is something we want to work on and take forward and do something for the clinic and for the community."
Another team member, Ridi Barua, elaborates: "During one of dentist appointments, one of the dental hygienists, she had to call someone, there was a long wait time. It was very crucial to explain procedure and what's going to happen. However, she needed to call back again and again. These are small translations that could be easily solved if you just had the push of a button, and it it translates right away."
Dentist Megan Milburn says the new tool helps procedures go a lot smoother.
"It has a lot of phrases that we use over and over again for the same kind of appointments," Milburn says.
The benefits extend beyond the appointment, too. Patients receive Spanish-language instruction on what to do next, and how to maintain their teeth as part of preventative care. If they have questions, they can use a QR code to take them to the translation site.
Clinic officials see room to build on this initial model.
"What we see with the design of this project is it can go so much further," says Janine Underwood, the Bradley Free Clinic's executive director. "We have always struggled in trying to do better in communicating with our patents and educating patients. We feel like Bradley Free Clinic really reflects the community. This program will be able to reach out to patients where English is a second language, or any of our patients."
The Virginia Tech students have wrapped up their work and graduate this weekend. But they're hoping future cohorts of the biodesign team will build on their work by adding additional languages, or expanding it to be used by the clinic's medical staff too.
