SBIR/STTR Research Award
ProLingua RX: Language communication tool for pharmacist
Award amount
$114,536Program and phase
SBIR · Phase IAward year
2005Award details
- Awarding agency
- Department of Health and Human Services
- Branch
- National Institutes of Health
- Recipient company
- POLYGLOT SYSTEMS, INC.
- Proposal award date
- Not reported
- Contract end date
- Not reported
- UEI
- Not reported
- Solicitation number
- PHS2005-2
- Topic code
- Not reported
Research abstract
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.
Technology keywords
Not reported