Open AccessArticle
Diffusion of Technology for Language Challenges in the South African Healthcare Environment
Department of Information Technology, Faculty of Informatics and Design, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town 7700, Soth Africa
*whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: connectvilla@yahoo.com
Adv. Sci. Technol. Eng. Syst. J. 5(4), 257–265 (2020);
DOI: 10.25046/aj050432
(This article belongs to Section Information Systems in Computer Science (CIS))
Even though mobile technologies are increasingly used to enable communications between providers and receivers of healthcare services, there remain severity challenges owing to the use of various indigenous languages in many Africa countries. Some of the challenges get worst in a countries like South Africa where there are eleven official languages. As a result, interpreters and technology-enabled translation become inevitable. However, technology-enabled translation is even more complex because of the semantics that exists in the languages. The study was undertaken to identify the critical challenging factors that exists in the use of South African languages for healthcare services. The interpretivist approach was employed, and Rogers’ diffusion of innovations (DOI) theory was applied in the analysis of the data, to examine and understand how indigenous languages affects healthcare services. From the analysis, six factors were found: confidentiality, translation, interpretation, synchronisation, spoken language, and integration, and categorised into three groups, namely ethics, services and systems.
Received: 18 June 2020, Accepted: 09 July 2020, Published Online: 28 July 2020
- K. S. Gupta, V. Rokade, Importance of quality in health care sector: A review. Journal of Health Management. 18(1):84-94, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1177/0972063415625527
- O. P. Kogeda, N. Mpekoa, Model for A Mobile Phone Voting System for South Africa. In 2013 Conference. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256815434_Model_for_A_Mobile_Phone_Voting_System_for_South_Africa
- S. Naidoo. Transcultural and language barriers to patient care. South African Dental Journal. 69(9):425, 2014. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC160573
- L. R. Burns, ed, The business of healthcare innovation. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
- A. H. Qassim, Translation, grammatically, viewed. University of Baghdad/College of Languages. 2014.
- E. M. Rogers, “Diffusion of Innovations: modifications of a model for telecommunications.” In Die diffusion von innovationen in der telekommunikation, pp. 25-38. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1995. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-79868-9_2
- A. S. Lien, Y. D. Jiang, Integration of diffusion of innovation theory into diabetes care. Journal of diabetes investigation, 8(3), 259–260. https://doi.org/10.1111/jdi.12568
- R. Agarwal, Individual acceptance of information technologies. Framing the domains of IT management: Projecting the future through the past, 85-104, 2000.
- P. Nemutanzhela, T. Iyamu, “Theory of diffusion of innovation for analysis in information systems studies,” 2015 Science and Information Conference (SAI), London, 2015, pp. 603-608, doi: 10.1109/SAI.2015.7237205.
- B. K. Daigle, Jr L.G. Kent, W. T. Daniell, W. H. Eason, S. N. Zellner, J. C. Liu, R. A. Koch, “Electronic message translations accompanied by indications of translation.” U.S. Patent 8,027,438, issued September 27, 2011.
- E. J. Peréz-Stable, A. Nápoles-Springer, J. M. Miramontes, The effects of ethnicity and language on medical outcomes of patients with hypertension or diabetes. Medical care, 35(12), pp.1212-1219, 1997. doi: 10.1097/00005650-199712000-00005.
- T. M. Tocher, E. Larson, Quality of diabetes care for non-English-speaking patients. A comparative study. Western Journal of Medicine, 168(6), p.504, 1998. PMID: 1305066.
- R. A. David, M. Rhee, The impact of language as a barrier to effective health care in an underserved urban Hispanic community. Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, 1; 65:393-7, Oct 1998. PMID: 9844369.
- P K. Lee, C. N. Rosenberg, H. Tsao, A. J. Sober, Failure of Q-switched ruby laser to eradicate atypical-appearing solar lentigo: report of two cases. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 38(2), pp.314-317, 1998. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0190-9622(98)70572-9
- P. Newmark, A textbook of translation. Vol. 66. New York: Prentice hall, 1988.
- N. L. Ruxwana, M. E. Herselman, D. P. Conradie, ICT applications as e-health solutions in rural healthcare in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Health information management journal. 2010 Mar; 39(1):17-29. https://doi.org/10.1177/183335831003900104
- W. A. Nord, Religion and American education: Rethinking a national dilemma. UNC Press Books, 2014.
- C. Free, G. Phillips, L. Galli, L. Watson, L. Felix, P. Edwards, A. Haines, The effectiveness of mobile-health technology-based health behaviour change or disease management interventions for health care consumers: a systematic review. PLoS med, 10(1), e1001362, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001362
- J. A. Effken, P. Abbott, Health IT-enabled care for underserved rural populations: The role of nursing. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 2009 Jul 1; 16(4):439-45. https://doi.org/10.1197/jamia.M2971
- G. M. Fix, T. P. Hogan, D. J. Amante, D. K. McInnes, K. M. Nazi, S. R. Simon, “Encouraging patient portal use in the patient-centered medical home: three stakeholder perspectives.” Journal of medical Internet research 18, no. 11 (2016). doi:10.2196/jmir.6488
- A. Dhai, The Life Esidimeni tragedy: Moral pathology and an ethical crisis. South African Medical Journal. 108(5):382-5, 2018. DOI: 10.7196/SAMJ.2018.v108i5.13232
- L. Gleitman, A. Papafragou, New perspectives on language and thought. The Oxford handbook of thinking and reasoning. 2012; 2:543-68.
- S. Iftikhar, A. M. Ishaq, H. F. Ahmad, K. Fatima, “Introducing semantics in DHTs for Grid services in a semantic registry.” In 2010 6th International Conference on Emerging Technologies (ICET), pp. 382-387. IEEE, 2010. DOI: 10.1109/ICET.2010.5638457
- J. J. Vosloo, A sport management programme for educator training in accordance with the diverse needs of South African schools (Doctoral dissertation), 2014.
- I. van Zyl, Disciplinary kingdoms: Navigating the politics of research philosophy in the information systems. The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries. 70(1):1-7 Sep 2015. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1681-4835.2015.tb00501.x
- R. K. Yin, Validity and generalization in future case study evaluations. Evaluation. 2013 Jul; 19(3):321-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/1356389013497081
- J. Sutton, Z. Austin, Qualitative research: Data collection, analysis, and management. The Canadian journal of hospital pharmacy. 68(3):226, May 2015. doi: 10.4212/cjhp.v68i3.1456
- A. Fabijan, H. H. Olsson, J. Bosch, “Customer feedback and data collection techniques in software R&D: a literature review.” In International Conference of Software Business, pp. 139-153. Springer, Cham, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19593-3_12
- P. Dutta, Communication of Innovations for Freedom. International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Literature, 2(12), 15-32, 2014. https://www.academia.edu/21193892/_communication_of_innovations_for_freedom_
- T. G. Striphas, Communication as…: Perspectives on Theory. Sage; 2006.
- E. M. Rogers, Diffusion of innovations. 5th ed. New York: Free Press, 2003.
No. of Downloads Per MonthNo. of Downloads Per Country