Remote healthcare interpreting: challenges & strategies

Abstract: The rising diversity and multilingual nature of our societies create a great need for language mediation (Tipton & Furmanek, 2016) that can simply not be fulfilled with onsite interpreting services only (Gonz\ue1lez Rodr\uedguez & Spinolo, 2017, p. 242). Healthcare interpreters, professionals and patients are therefore increasingly confronted with remote interpreting by telephone and video link. In some European countries, such as the Netherlands, the number of interpreting services performed by telephone nowadays greatly surpasses on-site interpreting in healthcare. Yet, among interpreters and healthcare professionals, remote interpreting has never been undisputed, and researchers also argue that it is not simply a technical solution but \u201ca complex social practice\u201d (Braun, 2018, p. 416). Whereas studies carried out by medical scientists often paint a rather favorable picture of remote interpreting in terms of patient satisfaction and cost-effectiveness (P\uf6chhacker, 2006), studies from a communications perspective, such as interpreting studies, point towards several negative side effects associated with this modality. These range from interpreters\u2019 working conditions, including ergonomics and remuneration (Alley, 2012) to emotional and social aspects of the interpreter\u2019s virtual presence instead of physical (Skinner et al., 2018), and rapportbuilding between participants (De Boe, 2020). Research has established a link between cognitive and linguistic issues: the lack of (full) visual access may lead to cognitive overload, inducing fatigue and a potential decline in interpreting quality, such as the omission of content (Braun, 2006)