ProLingua RX: Language communication tool for pharmacist

Polyglot Systems, Inc., Morrisville NC

Investigators

Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): ProLingua RX: Language communication tool for pharmacists. Twenty million people in the United States are unable to speak an effective level of the English language to understand simple medicine instructions. This Limited English Proficient (LEP) population represents 1 of every 15 people in the United States. This population is expected to increase 40% over the next 20 years. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimates that medication errors account for about 7,000 deaths annually and costs approximately $2 billion for the nation as a whole. Medication errors were also found to account for over 700,000 injuries each year. Language barrier has been found to be a significant cause of some of these deaths and injuries. The goal of this Phase I application is to create an innovative proof-of-concept tool for professional pharmacists to generate medicine instructions in a foreign language, and provide these instructions to LEP patients in both written and verbal form. [unreadable] [unreadable]