Language discordance and technological mediation in healthcare service encounters: A contrastive experiment.

This chapter reports on the design and implementation of a multilingual, mobile app to facilitate the communication in language discordant service encounters (SE). It describes the results of a two-group between-subjects experiment, in which respondents (N=20) were randomly assigned to either a SE with app (N=11), or a SE without app (N=9). The research builds on the hypothesis that technological mediation facilitates the transfer of information. To verify this hypothesis, it relies on qualitative and quantitative research data: (i) SERVQUAL satisfaction questionnaires and (ii) interaction analysis of video-recorded SEs. The findings address concerns of lengthened visit time, reduced eye contact and additional training needs. The chapter closes with brief guidelines for unlocking the potential of mHealth in language discordant SEs.

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