Case study:

Translation of Instructions for Use for Medical Devices

Our client who is a leader in medical device manufacturing sector that provides products, services, and solutions on a global scale, needed to localize their content as part of their international expansion strategy. They got in touch with KPT to translate a set of documentation for one of their ground-breaking new products. IFUs and manuals were translated into French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish by the KPT team.

About the Project: KPT provided Translation Services for IFU’s and manuals in major European and Japanese languages.

• Service name: Translation, Back Translation and Reconciliation
• Language Pair: French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish
• Service type: Translation/Back Translation, Reconciliation
• Industry: Biotechnology

The Challenge
The medical device manufacturer’s content geared towards two distinct categories: patient- facing and physician-facing. These two distinct audiences inevitably demanded completely different strategies in terms of localization. In contrast to the former, which required extensive cultural adaptation and a friendlier tone overall , the latter was faced with more specific technical discourse requirements. As an additional quality assurance step, KPT also performed linguistic validation with back translation for IFUs, and some of the other technical content.

Solution provided by KPT to client

Localization experts with expertise in Life Sciences were handpicked through stringent selection process.

Terminology management is the first step in a technical translation effort that is successful. Management of terminology has two purposes. Firstly, the translation team’s CAT tools are supplied with a multilingual lexicon of accepted terms to guarantee accuracy and consistency.

The translators receive prompts from the tools as they work. Not only field-specific, but also a customised client-specific term base and translation memory can then be built on to ensure consistency and accuracy across future projects. Secondly, when translating content and meta-data for web searches, the bilingual dictionary can guide the translator’s selection of keywords.

In many cases, it’s best practise for our clients to review the term base, which is a list of words that our linguists are likely to employ, prior to the project’s commencement. KPT’s first step towards building a term base starts with extracting a list of specialized source terms with thehelp of a term extraction mechanism. In this client’s case, the translation team, which were made up of linguists who are native speakers each target language and experts in the medical device sector, began by translating and checking the term base prepared by the project manager.

The IFUs and other instructional materials were translated, then back translated into the original language. Back translation is the independent English translation of each delivery from the target language into the source language. We compare the source and back translation at the reconciliation step, then we work with the translators to iron out any discrepancies. According to our workflow – in particular for this client’s specific requirements – linguistic validation is achieved by back translation. This step also offers proof and assurance that sensitive content underwent the strictest quality control. A total of six language pairs needed back translations for this project and expert project ensured that it was completed by the client’s deadline right before their much anticipated launch.

Results
After several steps of checks, the final multilingual content was sent to the customer in time for their product launch, satisfying the demands of every market for expertly translated instructions for using medical devices. Equipped with vast experience in the field, KPT is proud to offer expert localization for patient- and physician-facing material for clients in the pharmaceutical and medical device sector, and beyond.

About KeyPoint Technologies
KeyPoint Technologies through its proven expertise has pioneered native language messaging and communication with world’s largest language base. Spearheading research in linguistics and AI, it has built the best suited next generation language and device solutions. We are trusted partners to OEMs, Operators, and App Developers for developing intelligent interfaces, engines & input experiences. Our product range includes world’s first AI powered, user-initiated, multi- lingual, search and discovery platform, Xploree; A multilingual, multipurpose conversational chatbot called Xbot. We are also identified as a leader in the localization industry, providing end- to-end translation and localization solutions to help our clients attain their global communication, marketing and revenue goals.