Would like to make a Spanish wiki-like web site for nurses. How?

[BluegrassRN]

I'm interested in creating a free website that has the basic spanish one needs to assess and interact with a patient. I would like to make this for nurses and staff who speak little Spanish. It wouldn't necessarily be for in depth interactions. I envision it to be more of a "Here are a bunch of yes/no and short answer questions (and their possible answers), basic commands, and basic phrases that will assist you in assessing, treating, educating, and interacting with your Spanish speaking clients". We wouldn't need to isolate it to Spanish...but I don't have any resources for any other helpful language, so for now it would be Spanish.

I would like it to be interactive. I'd like people to be able to add their own phrases, or note things like "In LA you'd use this particular phrase for chest pain". I'd love for it to be easily available and user friendly, so a nurse could reference it on her smartphone in a pinch, or print off an entire assessment for, if she's like me, the 2 times a year she has a Spanish speaking patient who doesn't have a translator immediately available.

Here's my problem. I'm a computer idiot. I'm stretching my limits by downloading and playing podcasts on my ipod. I don't know the first thing about setting up a SIMPLE website, much less one that is wikipedia style.

My husband is a Spanish teacher, and can help me with the Spanish. He is a little more computer literate than I am, but not much. He's never set up any sort of website, for example. He has a pretty set curriculum, in the sense that I can't ask him to do this as a class project for his upper levels, but I have thought about asking him if he as a few computer savvy students who would take this on as an independent study project of some sort.

Other than paying someone else to do this, what are my options? Is it that difficult to set up an interactive website? Are there on line tutorials out there that would take me from idiot to completed awesome webpage? I would really appreciate your suggestions, comments, ideas, etc.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

There are already several sites like that available..

And....per hospital and facility policies, it is usually required that you use an official translator or translator service for interactions with non-English speaking patients.

[BluegrassRN]

Where are these websites? I did an internet search, and all I could find (in the first 4 pages of results, anyway) were courses or websites for which one had to register and pay a fee to use.

Maybe I'm not making myself clear.

I'm looking to build something free, for the basic things one needs to interact with a patient.

When you are assessing someone who only speaks Spanish, are you going to call the translator line to tell them things like "Take a deep breath" or "are you having any pain?" Are you going to call a translator to come in to translate the phrase "Would you like more water?" No, not if you can say these things yourself.

We do not have 24 hour in house translators, and even when we do have someone in house, they cannot be there instantly to ask a patient if they need to go to the bathroom. The translator phone takes several minutes to set up, and is difficult to use with patients who are hard of hearing. You aren't going to use it for brief interactions.

I guess I'm a little surprised that someone wouldn't want to know some basic phrases or how to do a basic assessment in Spanish. TraumaRUs, do you really think it wouldn't be helpful to know these things?

Anyone else have an opinion? If that's really the general consensus among nurses, then I won't waste my time, and I'll just make my own database for myself.

[Mission]

I think it's a good idea, especially for simple things like getting a glass of water. I agree with TraumaRU that you wouldn't want to use it in place of an official translator for things like assessments or discharge instructions and I think that is something the site should explicitly state. On the other hand, there are plenty of non-hospital settings where nurses work that cannot afford translation services that could benefit from something like this.

There are certainly a lot of existing medical Spanish websites (I like Medical Spanish) but I've never seen one that is specifically geared towards nurses.

[BluegrassRN]

Thanks for the link, Mission. It does illustrate my point, though, as it has some free things on it, but that part is pretty limited. Mostly they want to you pay a fee for the various on line medical spanish courses they offer. I'm going to sign up for the daily emails, though, those appear to be free, and I'm sure at least some of them will be helpful. Thanks!

[happy2learn]

I wonder if they make an app for iPhone or Android for something like that?

[AgentBeast, MSN, RN]

Yahoo! Babel Fish - Text Translation and Web Page Translation

The translations it spits out aren't exact but close enough.

[mazy]

I work on the side as a (Spanish) medical interpreter and am always curious about resources available to translate and interpret for non-Spanish speaking staff.

An interactive site sounds like an idea worth investigating, at least as a learning tool, but I'm not sure if nowadays the internet is a medium where that could be successful. Or maybe I'm not sure how it could be successful.

I can see a well-developed iPhone app being useful to someone who is in the moment. Unfortunately, most of them are pretty sucky. That is an area with a wealth of development opportunities.

The most important thing for the interpreter is to be able to break down complex medical terms into information that is understandable to the layman, also taking into account that most of your clients have different cultural understandings of the information being communicated.

Also, you're dealing with a health care professional who might be pressured and is rattling off information like a machine gun. It can get very confusing very fast and you do need to know not just how to communicate but also to control the flow of information (DR. PLEASE STOP AND TAKE A BREATH!!)

It's too bad health care facilities don't provide staff with learning opportunities so they can establish a relationship with the patient and get the ball rolling on basic assessment stuff until the interpreter gets there. Not being able to do that, the best learning tool is to just arm yourself with some basic grammar and vocabulary and find a way to put yourself into situations where you have to speak the language. Eventually you pick up the rhythm and things start making sense.

I found the "meetup.com" site to be good for that, you can find Spanish language groups in any city where people with any level can get together and socialize and practice their language skills. it's a way to force yourself to communicate that is fun and safe.

http://www.meetup.com/

But definitely, many more resources needed so I'd be interested to see what the OP could come up with.

[BluegrassRN]

I wouldn't know where to begin creating an iphone/ipod app...maybe I should ask my kids. Or is it one of those things that I'm just too old to learn?

I see the value in it, too. However, apps aren't interactive (in the sense that they are not constantly dynamic, and that all users can edit/add/clarify material), and that's something that I just absolutely love about wikipedia.

Hmm. Seriously, I guess I'm going to have to ask some of my kids' tech savvy friends. It does interest me, but it might be beyond me.

Thanks for the input, everyone.

[happy2learn]

I don't know how to make apps either, lol. It doesn't have anything to do with age, I'm 24. I don't know how to make websites either.

The problem I have with wikipedia is that anyone can edit it. There could be wrong information in there. My husband worked with a large group of hispanics and the only things they taught him to say were dirty words. I would hate for someone to get on a wiki site and be mean and put a bunch of dirty words on there and then an unsuspecting nurse use them.