Getting the nurses attention as a patient can be tricky if one is hospitalized but thanks to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Aweza’s new app, healthcare providers and patients can communicate effectively.
The content of AwezaMed was developed in collaboration with health experts and is aimed at supporting healthcare workers to communicate with patients at healthcare facilities, especially during COVID-19-related screening.
“By bridging the communication barrier, the trust relationship between the healthcare provider and patient can be improved. In addition, the patient’s experience and the healthcare provider-patient confidentiality can be improved, and lives can possibly be saved,” said Dr Karen Calteaux, CSIR Digital Audio-Visual Technologies Research Group Leader.
The new app also features localised speech technology such as speech recognition, machine translation, and text-to-speech developed by the CSIR and works on any Android smartphone. The CSIR is an entity under the Department of Science and Innovation and Aweza is an international award-winning tech-based initiative that strives to inspire and empower South Africans to overcome language barriers across all sectors of society.
AwezaMed is a no-cost app for users and enables healthcare providers to access a phrase in English, translate it into any South African official language, and play the phrase in the selected language. Originally developed with content pertaining to maternal healthcare and obstetrics, the application has been enhanced with COVID-19-related content and is available for download from the Play Store. There is no cost for users.
“AwezaMed emanated from a project funded by the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, that strives to bridge language barriers between healthcare practitioners and patients in clinics. A decision was taken to develop a version to address language barriers experienced by medical professionals working with COVID-19 patients,” said Dr Calteaux.
