As AI medical interpreting tech is emerging it is essential to think on what is the right strategy to integrate it in the workflow, alongside with professional medical interpreters. There are many good reasons why for the next couple of years there is a sense to have both solutions side by side.

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Dual Usability Examples

1. Providers' adoption - though using AI interpreters is simple and straight-forward, there are providers that would utilize human interpreters even if their institution supplies AI solutions due to habits and years of experience with the traditional workflow.
   
   
2. Patients' preferences - same for patients - the majority appreciate the fast access to care of AI, some might rather have humans that speak their language. From our experience there were very few cases where patients preferred humans.
   
   
3. ASL - AI is not yet in position to fully communicate in ASL - so on that front there would be a need for human interpreters in the next couple of years.
   
   
4. Patient condition, ability to communicate, situation sensitivity - there would be situations where the communication with a patient is not fluent, requires many repetitions and clarity for example - elderly and hard hearing.
   
   
5. Urgency - for situations where time is of the essence - AI would probably be the front line.
   
   
6. Languages that AI less performs - there are languages that AI does not shine - and will require human medical interpreters. Popular languages - where AI performs better than the average medical interpreter - there would be probably a tendency to AI utilization.
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Summary

‍The side-by-side approach seems the most adequate one where AI can take the majority of the workload, supply fast access to care with cost-effective workflow while humans can bridge the gaps in the other cases as the examples above.