Pharma Systems – when compassion and empathy are in focus

”We're very pleased with the collaboration and above all with the dialogue with our project manager. It was easy to get in touch and easy to ask questions. We were given good feedback during the course of the work, which made the process smooth even though it was relatively extensive and time-consuming.”

Andreas Stridh, Product and Quality Manager, Pharma Systems

Pharma Systems is a Swedish medical technology company with its headquarters in Lysekil and manufacturing facilities in Estonia, among other places. The company develops, manufactures and distributes products for various types of respiratory systems, including HME filters and bacterial/viral filters – as well as combinations of these functions. The company also manufactures tracheostomy tube accessories for patients with respiratory obstructions.

Pharma Systems products are primarily used in anaesthesia, intensive care, paediatric and neonatal care, and in home healthcare. The company is a medical technology manufacturer and therefore operates within a regulatory framework where quality, patient safety and clear product information are central.

Pharma System's products are literally a matter of life and death. The user manuals in all the languages the company exports to must be correctly translated, completely unambiguous and leave no room whatsoever for interpretation or hesitation. At the same time, there was a time and cost aspect to consider.

Språkbolaget has helped Pharma Systems with translation from English into Arabic, Danish, Finnish, French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, German and Hungarian.

What were your thoughts regarding the translation and the choice of agency?

– When we were translating our updated instruction manuals, it was important for us to find an agency that felt straightforward and secure to work with, says Andreas Stridh, Product and Quality Manager at Pharma Systems.

– For us, the choice was not just about the translation itself, but also about the dialogue, the accessibility and the feeling that we could quickly get in touch if questions were to arise, Andreas continues.

Pharma Systems chose Språkbolaget as a partner, partly for the company's local roots on the west coast, but not only for that reason.

– We appreciated that the agency was easy to communicate with and that the collaboration felt professional and smooth right from the start, says Andreas. An important factor was, of course, the geographical proximity. It was positive that the agency was locally based, as it provided the opportunity to meet in person if needed to sort out any question marks. But in practice, the dialogue worked so well that such meetings were rarely necessary.

– We have an international clientele, but naturally think it's fun to have a locally rooted customer, says Ida Norlander, project manager at Språkbolaget. At the same time, as Andreas says, we have such smooth and well-established routines that physical meetings, however pleasant they may be, are quite rarely necessary.

– Price was also an important factor in the choice, continues Andreas. We needed to find a solution that both met our quality requirements and was reasonable from a cost perspective. Overall, we therefore weighed in communication, accessibility, local presence, price and the general feeling of a secure and functioning collaboration.

How did you think about the choice between AI translation and human translation? 

– We definitely saw that AI could help us reach our goal faster, especially in the initial phase, says Andreas. At the same time, user manuals are about medical technology products are not just about direct translation of words, but also about the right terminology and an understanding of how language is used in a clinical context.

– That is precisely where it is easy to get lost, confirms Ida Norlander. AI has an enormous amount to offer the language industry, and can often drive down costs. At the same time, as Andreas notes, there is certain terminology used in the clinical context – there is a standard way of expression. This can vary from language to language, and one of our tasks as a language service provider is to assess where AI can have a role, and where it does not work.

In dialogue with Pharma Systems, we concluded that AI absolute could be of help as an initial basis for the translation, but that it was important to first make a thorough analysis of which languages it could work to use AI for, and which languages needed to be translated from scratch by a human, says Ida. Since the quality of AI translation differs so much between different language combinations and within different subject areas, we then made an assessment in consultation with some of our most experienced translators and concluded that some of the languages were well suited for AI and others did not work at all.

– For us it was important to combine efficiency with human review and linguistic expertise, so that the translations would be clear, accurate and adapted to the actual use of our products, Andreas underlines.

 What has the working process been like?

– We based our work on established user manuals in English, which had already been reviewed and approved in accordance with current regulations, says Andreas. We then made an assessment based on active sales and current markets to determine which languages the user manuals should be translated into. In that work, we received valuable assistance from Språkbolaget.

– One of the challenges with a project where so many translators and proofreaders are involved is communication between them, continues Ida Norlander. If a translator has a query or comment, it is important that this is passed on to the rest of the team to ensure that the source texts are interpreted and translated consistently and correctly at every stage. In this type of document, there are many medical and technical terms and all of them must be translated correctly and consistently.

– When the translations were finished, they were passed on to our distributors and partners in each respective country, Andreas continues. There, the translations were reviewed by individuals with knowledge of the local language and an understanding of how the products are used in their clinical context. In this way, we were able to combine a structured translation process with local linguistic and practical grounding. 

Have you had any feedback on the translations?

– Generally speaking, our partners were very pleased with the first version of the translations, Andreas replies. Minor corrections have been made, and the work has gone very well. The distributors came back with comments regarding what they felt needed adjusting. Språkbolaget then had a dialogue with the translators, who were mostly able to confirm that the corrections were reasonable. This meant that the adjustments could be handled in a good and structured manner.

– This is another area where our specialist expertise comes in, Ida Norlander chimes in. Communicating with translators into a number of different languages is a delicate task. We know our translators and reviewers, and we have a personal relationship with each and every one of them. We know the kind of questions that tend to arise, we are prepared to tackle them, and we can usually handle linguistic discussions more efficiently than our customers – but we also know which issues actually need to be raised with the customer. 

The result, evaluation of the collaboration.

– The result was four major user manuals, all translated into 15 languages. It has been an extensive piece of work, but the collaboration has worked very well throughout the entire process, Andreas notes.

– We are pleased with both the result and the dialogue during the course of the work, says Andreas. We are very pleased with the cooperation and above all with the dialogue with the project manager in charge. It has been easy to make contact, simple to ask questions and we have received good feedback along the way. That made the process smooth despite it being relatively extensive and time-consuming.

– I can only agree, confirms Ida Norlander. In a project like this, with advanced and life-critical technology, the customer's expertise is tremendously important. At the same time, we at Språkbolaget have been able to contribute knowledge about where AI works and doesn't work, and we have organised comprehensive communication with a large number of specifically selected translators and reviewers that would have been difficult for our customer to handle on their own.

We at Språkbolaget believe and hope that our contribution to this project has helped ensure that clinicians worldwide have received effective information on how Pharma Systems products are to be handled.