Sun Yat-sen’s Third Hospital details multilingual care and online passport registration

The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University · 2026-11-02 · Read original

The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou described its multilingual clinical and online consultation services in a report published on November 2. The account connects language support during care with follow-up consultations and illustrates the process through treatment of a business visitor from Australia attending the Canton Fair.

Language support in clinics and multidisciplinary consultations

In consultation rooms, a two-sided transparent AI display translates conversations in both directions, presents the text separately to clinician and patient, and supports spoken playback. The equipment supports more than 30 foreign languages, including English, Japanese, Korean, Russian, French, Spanish and Arabic, as well as Uyghur, Tibetan and Cantonese.

The hospital says the functions are used for taking medical histories, communication during examinations, explaining conditions and giving care instructions. They help convey symptoms, medication histories, test results and treatment precautions. During multidisciplinary consultations, directional microphones capture speech, while electronic nameplates and automatic speaker labels distinguish contributions from different specialists. Multilingual meeting records can be retrieved by scanning a QR code for reference during subsequent care and follow-up.

Online consultations currently use Chinese and English

Patients can enter the international medical services section through the hospital’s official WeChat account menu or its Internet Hospital mini program, then choose text-and-image or video consultations. Built-in Chinese–English translation supports exchanges about the patient’s condition and clinical advice.

The English online consultation service supports registration using a passport. The hospital describes links with in-person care for follow-up consultations, medication guidance and health monitoring. The online system currently translates only between Chinese and English; its language range differs from that of the equipment used in clinics. Online test ordering and prescribing have not yet been launched.

A Canton Fair visitor’s care pathway

The report describes a visitor from Australia who developed swelling and pain in one leg after an approximately ten-hour flight and several days standing to set up an exhibition booth and attend business discussions. The symptoms worsened with activity, prompting a visit to the hospital’s International Medical Center.

Following bilingual history-taking and assessment, the team considered a high-risk possibility of travel-related venous thromboembolism, or VTE. It brought together specialists from interventional vascular care, emergency medicine and ultrasound, alongside the international nursing team, for a multidisciplinary consultation.

The care plan included anticoagulation, care of the affected limb, activity management, thrombosis prevention and prevention of longer-term complications. The team also considered overseas insurance settlement, language needs, follow-up and continuity of care after the patient returned home. According to the hospital, leg swelling and pain gradually eased with treatment, and the risk of pulmonary embolism was brought under control.