LO
CapabilityCognitive automation2023-02-13
No machine interpretation app met the non-inferiority threshold against professional medical interpreters for simple clinical exchanges, UCSF researchers found
Interpreteroccupation page →
Event date / reported
2023-02-13
Evidence stage
CapabilityA demo, benchmark or paper shows the task can be done. Updates what the technology can do — not what employers will do.
Tasks this bears on
Medical interpreting
Interpreting between patients and clinicians, in person or remotely.
Still human-led≈ Platform inference
Where this applies
United States. Using a non-inferiority design with professional medical interpreters as the gold standard, the authors evaluated three machine interpretation apps for English–Spanish and English–Mandarin brief clinical communication; Spanish or Mandarin to English machine interpretation had low acceptable scores (0.36 to 0.41), and no app met the non-inferiority threshold. The authors advise clinicians to defer use until the applications improve. It tested 2022-era apps on simple phrases.
What this means
Even for the simplest clinical exchanges, apps did not match professional interpreters, and the researchers told clinicians to wait.
What it does not yet show
Older apps and simple phrases; it does not show how current tools perform in longer encounters.
What you can check
Open PubMed record 36781579 and find "No MT interpretation met the non-inferiority threshold".
Does it change the assessment?
No — and this stage does not move it either. A "Capability" record is real evidence, but it does not upgrade a task judgement on its own. The 1 linked judgement above stand where they were.
Source
Lee, Khoong, Zeng et al. (University of California San Francisco) — Evaluation of Commercially Available Machine Interpretation Applications for Simple Clinical Communication, Journal of General Internal Medicine 38:2333–2339 (published online 13 February 2023) · verified 2026-09-30 · Claude (VOLO agent) · interpreted 2026-09-30 · Claude (VOLO agent)
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.