The Role of AI in Medical Translation – and How It Can Impact Healthcare

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having a profound effect on many aspects of the healthcare industry, from analysing medical imaging data to diagnose diseases, to analysing a patient’s medical history to predict health risks.

And now, AI’s reach is extending into another critical area of healthcare – medical translation.  And its impact cannot be understated.

Enhanced by the power of AI, medical translation has the potential to improve an array of medical fields, by increasing access to more timely and accurate information in users’ own languages.

But, as with any conversation around the role and impact of AI, there are also some key considerations – especially when taking into account the complexity of medical language and the high stakes involved with inaccuracies and errors.

Here we explore the role and usage of AI in medical translation, the main pros and considerations, and how AI’s potential can be harnessed to benefit healthcare.

The Role of AI in Medical Translation

In a post-Covid world, where the demand for timely, accurate medical information that is both translated and culturally relevant has never been higher, AI has the potential to take the strain from healthcare professionals and the specialist translators who serve them.

A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association notes: “access to timely and understandable written materials is a critical component of healthcare equity, but typical turnaround time for translations is several hours to several days. AI–based translation tools produce translations in seconds to minutes and thus have great promise to address this gap.”

Indeed, AI’s potential to boost productivity, reduce turnaround times and enable more cost-effective translation could greatly impact access to healthcare information globally, thereby improving patient experience.

Yet, the same article goes on to express caution, recognizing that “a framework is needed for evaluating and implementing this technology responsibly, reliably, and equitably.”

So, while it is clear that AI can have a transformative effect on global healthcare, approaching its use responsibly is key to ensuring it can best serve such a critical industry.

How AI is Enhancing Medical Translation

While AI is already greatly benefitting more general areas of translation, recent advancements in Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology are giving more healthcare professionals and translators the confidence in its potential for the highly specialized field of medical translation.

As continual improvements are made to Neural Machine Translation (NMT) algorithms, memory match systems and terminology databases, the translations they output are not only more accurate, but more natural – especially when they are trained using a high-quantity of quality-checked, human translated texts.

The immediate result is that medical translators can spend less time on Machine Translation Post-Editing (MTPE) for standardized documentation such as consent forms and give more focus to the specialized content that is more suited to their finely tuned skills, expertise and experience. In the longer term, the rise of NLP technology and NMT algorithms also means more bespoke AI translation models can be trained, tailored to specific terminology and tone of voice, which broadens AI’s appeal.

Pros and Considerations of AI in Medical Translation

So, what are the main benefits and barriers to increased use of AI in the medical translation field?

It’s well documented that AI translation tools can boost productivity and efficiency, improve consistency and standardization, and reduce time-to-market by processing and translating large amounts of information.

While this is no different for the healthcare sector, the impact can be truly transformational, by enabling more people globally to have access to timely, easily understandable – and often critical – medical information when they need it.

So, what are the drawbacks? Well, as with any translation field, and medical translation in particular, the use of AI should be carefully considered from both a quality and ethical standpoint.

When it comes to quality, no matter how advanced machine translation engines have become, they are not infallible, so an overconfidence in their output could mean inaccuracies and errors aren’t picked up if sufficient checks and gates aren’t in place.

Ethically, there are still confidentiality concerns around the use of AI, and this is amplified in the medical arena where personal patient data comes into play.

With these considerations in mind, it is important to not lose sight of the fact that medical translation is a highly skilled profession, requiring the input of experienced, specialist linguists. So, as the accuracy, productivity and cost-effectiveness of medical translation will inevitably continue to increase, the human element in the process should never be underestimated.

Giving Healthcare a Human Touch

At Mother Tongue Life Sciences, we carefully pair human expertise with artificial intelligence to deliver a range of AI-powered pharma solutions. These include automated translations post-edited by our expert medical writers, and training of bespoke AI translation models tailored to your unique brand voice and terminology.

Our streamlined workflows can be fully integrated with your systems, by leveraging connectors and our workflow orchestration platform. Content flows seamlessly between your teams and ours, with simple briefing and timely delivery exactly where you need it.

Get in touch to find out how our AI-powered medical translation solutions can support your business and mission.