When the schedule is tight, flexibility is critical

Lingsoft is a contracting partner for the Western Uusimaa wellbeing services county in Swedish and English, but also produces translations in French, Dari and Somali if necessary. The text types vary from short news bulletins to interim reports or pharmacotherapy plans that can be hundreds of pages long.

“In practice, all our texts have a social welfare, health care or rescue services perspective and the schedules are often tight as well. For example, documents produced by elected officials sometimes have to be translated on short notice. The support we receive from Lingsoft’s Express Service has been very valuable to us,” explains Djupsjö.

Lingsoft’s client portal is an important part of daily work. It makes cooperation smooth and secure.

“We place translation orders through the My Lingsoft portal, where a familiar team receives them. The portal is clear, functional and secure, and this is particularly important to us when, for example, translating patient documents.”

Translation quality and expertise build trust

A four-person internal translation team handles most of the needs for Swedish and English. The wellbeing services country relies on Lingsoft when the workload increases. The quality of translations is extremely important for the wellbeing services county, and this is particularly true for terminology in specialised fields.

“The quality is good, and even though things sometimes get very busy, we almost always receive very fluent and expert texts. The long-lasting cooperation is reflected in the fact that Lingsoft is familiar with the terms we use and produces consistent content.”

Djupsjö also appreciates Lingsoft’s quick reaction and straightforward communication.

“Lingsoft responds quickly to all our orders – not only express orders. It also reacts well to changes. Along with good competence, Lingsoft has functional processes and this is visible in the end result.”

Speech recognition frees up time and facilitates entries

In addition to translations, Western Uusimaa wellbeing services county uses the speech recognition service developed by Lingsoft. The aim is to reduce the administrative workload, speed up the recording process and free up time for actual client work.

“Patient entries used to be a multi-stage process: the doctor dictated, the secretary transcribed the dictation, and then the doctor checked the text and entered it into the patient information system. Speech recognition now converts speech directly into text, and it can be transferred to the system all at once,” says Lingsoft Business Development Specialist Janica Asplund.

Research shows that people speak about three times faster than they write, which means the time saved by speech recognition is significant for that reason alone. The system recognises Finnish and Swedish, and it is used in health care and also increasingly in social services. 

“This is something new – especially in social services. This area did not previously have a transcription service, and entries were made manually,” explains Asplund.

Finnish technology that understands the context

Lingsoft’s speech recognition solution utilises Finnish language technology, which is being continuously developed based on user needs. The solution is based on extensive, anonymised health care sector data that can be tailored for individual customers.

“The advantage in the Lingsoft solution is the fact that we can develop the model with the customer’s own data and terminology. Teaching the speech recognition model with validation by the main operator ensures that the entire organisation has access to the correct terminology – in a consistent and controlled manner. This distinguishes us from many other actors,” says Asplund.