AI in Healthcare Translation – How to Use It?

Translating healthcare content has traditionally been a complex process, leading many to question the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) integration in this field. However, recent advancements have demonstrated that AI can indeed play a significant role. Rather than replacing human translators, AI serves as a supportive tool that improves the accuracy and functionality of translations while working alongside human expertise. In this blog, we will explain how to use AI in healthcare translation to enhance patient care across various languages.

The Role of AI in Healthcare Translation

The incorporation of artificial intelligence into healthcare translation is pivotal for promoting equitable care for diverse patient populations. Utilizing AI technologies like neural machine translation, the process of translating health documents becomes more efficient and precise. These advanced systems, trained on extensive medical corpora, help maintain consistency in medical terminology.

This capability is crucial for handling complex, large-scale translation projects involving detailed medical records, patient information leaflets, drug labels, and clinical trial documents. By harnessing AI to support the translation process, organizations can deliver rapid, cost-effective translations while adhering to the stringent standards required for the healthcare field.

AI Technologies Employed in Medical Translation

• Neural Machine Translation (NMT): Utilizes deep learning algorithms to provide natural and accurate translations.
• Neural Translation Memory Systems: Stores and matches previously translated content with new material to ensure consistency.
• Terminology Management Systems (TBMS): Helps maintain consistency in medical terminology by providing access to extensive glossaries and databases.

Benefits of Artificial Intelligence Translations in the Healthcare Field

The use of AI in healthcare translation offers several distinct benefits. Some of them include:

1. Consistency and Accuracy: AI helps maintain consistent use of medical terms across various documents and platforms, by leveraging vast databases and previous translations as references. This is crucial in healthcare, where inconsistent terminology can lead to misunderstandings and medical errors.

2. Speed and Scalability: These technologies can process large volumes of text much faster than human translators alone. This capability is especially beneficial in healthcare settings where timely communication is essential, such as during medical emergencies or in the rapid dissemination of public health information.

3. Cost Efficiency: Automating part of the translation process reduces the time and labor involved, which can significantly cut costs. This makes it feasible to translate more content within the same budget, expanding access to multilingual healthcare information.

4. 24/7 Availability: AI-powered chatbots do not have the limitations of human work hours, making them available around the clock. When trained by translators, they provide continuous support essential during medical emergencies, preventing delays. This allows patients to access medical advice from home, improving healthcare accessibility and response times. 

5. Enhanced Accessibility: By facilitating multilingual communication, AI helps healthcare providers reach a broader audience, including non-English speakers and those with limited language proficiency. This increased accessibility helps ensure that all patients have equal access to important health information and services, promoting equitable healthcare.

6. Dependable Patient Experience: While interacting with different human consultants can lead to varying behavior, conversational AI provides a consistent experience. It delivers messages crafted by translators to align with the company's policies and ethics.

The Importance of Training AI for Healthcare Translations

Training AI for healthcare translations is necessary because it directly impacts patient safety and care. Several risks can arise if artificial intelligence is not trained:

• Data Privacy and Security: AI relies heavily on data, posing risks to personal information if not secured and managed according to regulations.
• Hallucinations: Machine intelligence can generate convincing but incorrect content, producing misleading results and fake references.
• Outdated Information: Outdated AI models may not include translations about the latest medical advancements, such as new cancer therapies or recent clinical trials. For instance, a model trained until 2021 might miss newly approved immunotherapies, leading to translations that could impact patient care and treatment decisions.

The Role of Human Translators in Training and Refining AI Models

Human translators are pivotal in training artificial intelligence for healthcare translations. They provide initial data and ongoing feedback, ensuring the AI translation tools understand medical concepts, cultural nuances, and contextual details. Translators also update and validate terminology databases, which are important for AI to accurately interpret and translate complex medical information, thereby reducing errors and improving translation quality. 

Precision and reliability in healthcare translation are vital to prevent severe consequences, such as misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment. While AI can support translators by handling repetitive tasks and managing large datasets, human oversight remains essential to ensure accuracy, reliability, and contextual appropriateness in medical translations.

The Human Post-Editing Process for AI Translations

1. Initial AI Translation: The medical text is first translated by an AI system, producing a draft translation quickly and efficiently.

2. Human Review: A professional medical translator reviews the AI-generated translation, correcting any errors and refining the language for healthcare clarity and precision.

3. Termbase Consultation: During the review process, the translator consults an up-to-date medical termbase containing validated terminology, including healthcare procedures, medications, and treatment protocols. This ensures that specialized medical terms are used consistently and accurately by AI.

4. Contextual and Cultural Adjustments: The medical translator ensures that the translation is culturally relevant and contextually accurate, adapting idiomatic expressions and cultural nuances appropriately to the healthcare context.

5. Final Quality Check: The post-edited healthcare translation undergoes a final review to ensure it meets the required standards of medical quality and accuracy.

How to Safely Incorporate AI into Medical Translation

For those seeking AI-powered translation services, it is key to partner with a translation agency that adheres to the following guidelines:

• Professional Management: AI should be managed by a professionally trained medical translator and not used for official healthcare communications without thorough human review.
• Supporting Human Translators, not Replacing: While it can be beneficial for managing terminology, translation memory,  administrative tasks, informal translations for social media, and a general understanding of foreign texts, AI-generated translations should not be used for official healthcare communications without thorough human review
• Continuous Updates: AI models should be regularly updated with the latest medical research, and a feedback system should be established for ongoing improvement from human translators.
• Data Privacy and Security: A responsible translation company must ensure that all data used for training and operating artificial intelligence is handled securely and complies with relevant regulations to protect patient confidentiality and privacy.
• Target Audience Adaptation: Customizing AI-generated translations to meet the specific needs of the target audience, considering cultural nuances and ensuring contextual appropriateness, is necessary.
• Risk Management: Being aware of technology’s limitations is important to avoid over-reliance. It is crucial to have contingency plans for machine translation failures and ensure that human experts can intervene when necessary.
• Transparency and Accountability: A reliable translation agency must maintain clear documentation of AI tool usage, define responsibilities for final translations, and establish measures to address and correct any mistakes.

Machine Translation Post-Editing (MTPE) in Healthcare by PoliLingua

PoliLingua can employ AI for initial translations in the healthcare field upon customer request. Our team of expert medical linguists then reviews and refines the content to ensure superior quality. From initial translation to final post-editing and quality assurance, we offer a complete suite of services. Our AI software can be customized through Machine Translation (MT) training and glossary integration to address specific domain requirements, such as healthcare. This customization enables our Machine Translation Post-Editing (MTPE) service to benefit from AI translation software that learns specific medical vocabulary and style preferences unique to your business through the use of Translation Memories (TM) and glossaries.

To ensure the confidentiality and security of your data, we use encryption and strict access controls within our secure internal systems. Only translators and team members involved in the translation process can access the information, and they cannot download it from our platform.

We have extensive experience in translating healthcare content using MTPE(Machine Translation Post-Editing). Our expertise covers a wide range of materials, including medical reports, prescriptions, brochures, informational materials, consent forms, research papers, clinical trial documentation, patient information leaflets, treatment plans, and chatbot interactions and responses. Each document is meticulously reviewed and refined by our team of medical linguists to ensure accuracy and compliance with medical standards. Discover how our artificial intelligence (AI) and human expertise can enhance accuracy and compliance in your medical and healthcare translations. Contact us today to learn more!