PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--HealthTap, the world’s first Global Health Practice providing 24/7 immediate access to top doctors via video, text, or voice, announced today that multi participant Virtual Consultations, including medical translation and interpretation services, are now available for its users globally. This breakthrough service removes language barriers and dramatically expands access to high-quality immediate care to HealthTap users in 174 countries around the world.
Powered by HealthTap’s proprietary Health Operating System HOPES™, doctors all over the world, as well as patients, translators and caregivers can now engage in Live Group Consults, enabling multiple participants to join a private video/text/voice chat in real time from anywhere on any mobile device or personal computer. These multi-participant Virtual Consultations are encrypted, private and HIPAA secure and are consistent with HealthTap’s commitment to continuous innovation and to providing better care to anyone, anywhere.
By enabling interpreters to join Virtual Consultations, HealthTap opens the doors to high quality healthcare for world travelers, family members that don’t speak English, and other people for whom language barriers are obstacles in getting the care they need, when they need it.
The ability to add an interpreter to healthcare conversations is just one benefit of this new HealthTap Group Consults capability. With other participants able to join doctor-patient Virtual Consultations, users on HealthTap advanced enterprise offerings can now add specialists, family members, and caregivers to important health conversations. HealthTap Group Consults not only help remove language barriers, but they also expedite the process of finding treatments and cures.
"Simply stated, the new Group Consults offering is another example of how HealthTap's Virtual Care platform powered by HOPES™ is light years ahead of everyone else in the market,” said Dr. Dariush Saghafi, a Neurologist from Parma Ohio. “By enabling doctors to bring together specialists, family members, and even translators, HealthTap is increasing access while simultaneously providing deeper, more comprehensive and more personalized care.”
To add a translator to a Virtual Consultation, a user can easily schedule and confirm an appointment using HealthTap Prime or HealthTap Concierge, and select the option to invite a translator to a scheduled virtual appointment. When confirmed and paid for, a medical translator and interpreter will automatically join the patient and his or her doctor to facilitate a Virtual Consult. Currently supported languages include: Spanish, Cantonese (Chinese), Mandarin (Chinese), French, American Sign Language, Vietnamese, Korean, Arabic, Hindi, Punjabi, Haitian Creole, Russian, Polish, Portuguese, Cambodian, Burmese, Nepali, Amharic, Somali, Tigrinya and Urdu.
“Having served hundreds of millions of people on all 7 continents – including Antarctica – we’re constantly receiving requests from people to access our world class network of more than 102,000 top U.S. doctors, for consultations in their native languages. As always, we’re delighted to be the first to offer Virtual Care via voice, text, and video consultations where both doctors and translators are readily available anytime anywhere,” said Ron Gutman, HealthTap’s Founder and CEO. “We are super excited to be pioneering this big step forward in removing barriers for millions of people to access healthcare when they need it most. Today, we’ve made an important step towards fulfilling our vision and mission to provide everyone everywhere with easy, affordable immediate access to healthcare they understand, and we will continue to evolve our Health Operating System (HOPES) and our services and products to serve healthcare people and healthcare systems worldwide.”
For more information on how to use HealthTap’s multi-participant chat feature, visit: www.healthtap.com/goto/translators
To watch a short video on HealthTap’s multi-participant chat feature, visit: www.healthtap.com/goto/translators_video
About HealthTap
HealthTap, a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, is the world’s first Global Health Practice. HealthTap delivers immediate, world-class healthcare 24/7 from Query-to-Cure™. Through video, voice, and text chat on any mobile device or personal computer, HealthTap connects hundreds of millions of people everywhere with the most trusted health advice from a network of more than 102,000 top U.S. doctors. HealthTap’s proprietary, robust, and secure Health Operating System (HOPES™) and proprietary triaging technology enable healthcare systems, payers, employers, and technology companies worldwide to provide the right care at the right time at the right price. Sign up today and download HealthTap’s free apps for iPhone, iPad, or Android at healthtap.com.
