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. 2024 Feb 22:12:1337395.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1337395. eCollection 2024.

Overcoming language barriers in pediatric care: a multilingual, AI-driven curriculum for global healthcare education

Fouzi Benboujja  1 , Elizabeth Hartnick  2 , Evelyn Zablah  1 , Cheryl Hersh  3 , Kevin Callans  1   4 , Perla Villamor  5   6 , Phoebe H Yager  7 , Christopher Hartnick  1
Affiliations

Overcoming language barriers in pediatric care: a multilingual, AI-driven curriculum for global healthcare education

Fouzi Benboujja et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Online medical education often faces challenges related to communication and comprehension barriers, particularly when the instructional language differs from the healthcare providers' and caregivers' native languages. Our study addresses these challenges within pediatric healthcare by employing generative language models to produce a linguistically tailored, multilingual curriculum that covers the topics of team training, surgical procedures, perioperative care, patient journeys, and educational resources for healthcare providers and caregivers.

Methods: An interdisciplinary group formulated a video curriculum in English, addressing the nuanced challenges of pediatric healthcare. Subsequently, it was translated into Spanish, primarily emphasizing Latin American demographics, utilizing OpenAI's GPT-4. Videos were enriched with synthetic voice profiles of native speakers to uphold the consistency of the narrative.

Results: We created a collection of 45 multilingual video modules, each ranging from 3 to 8 min in length and covering essential topics such as teamwork, how to improve interpersonal communication, "How I Do It" surgical procedures, as well as focused topics in anesthesia, intensive care unit care, ward nursing, and transitions from hospital to home. Through AI-driven translation, this comprehensive collection ensures global accessibility and offers healthcare professionals and caregivers a linguistically inclusive resource for elevating standards of pediatric care worldwide.

Conclusion: This development of multilingual educational content marks a progressive step toward global standardization of pediatric care. By utilizing advanced language models for translation, we ensure that the curriculum is inclusive and accessible. This initiative aligns well with the World Health Organization's Digital Health Guidelines, advocating for digitally enabled healthcare education.

Keywords: artificial intelligence (AI); curriculum; digital health; education; generative language models; global health; healthcare; pediatric.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
English to Spanish video translations using generative language models.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Snapshots from curriculum chapters.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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