Breaking Language Barriers for International Health Professionals’Community

Japan’s Distinguished Professor Talks about Medical Online-E

By Yoshinori Nakata MD MBA

I have had the privilege of working and collaborating with Meteo for more than 10 years. During this period, I have had the opportunity to observe relevant Japanese medical information delivered to all health professionals through its Medical*Online in Japan. The Japanese health professionals have enjoyed the benefits of reaching and reading Japanese medical information through their mother tongue. Medical*Online has been very popular among health professionals in Japan and its membership has steadily increased since its birth.

Meteo now has reached a new stage of its achievement; it started Medical*Online-E. Due to the language barrier, medical literatures written in the Japanese language were incomprehensible for those who do not understand the language. Meteo has broken this barrier and started Medical*Online-E that mechanically translates Japanese medical literature into English, Chinese and Korean, and delivers them to health professionals all over the world through Internet. Medical*Online-E covers over 1.4 million medical literatures published in more than 700 Japanese medical journals. Meteo has also made it possible to search a reference in English. The users can browse the literatures through journal names, key words and medical societies' name. Medical*Online-E has an external link with PubMed and Link Resolver.

It is absolutely unacceptable for patients to be unable to receive the best possible diagnosis and treatments due to the language barrier among health professionals. Clinically relevant information must be used for the benefit of all patients regardless of what language they or their health professionals speak. Medical*Online-E will certainly achieve this goal.

I am sure that Medical*Online-E can deliver Japanese medical information to the international community of health professionals and ultimately contribute to all the patients in the world. I strongly recommend that all medical libraries and health educational institutes should use this new tool for the benefits of health professionals and their patients.