Medical Software Localization | Best Practices & Significance
By: Eric Nelson Posted on Thu, 05-10-2023
Medical digitization is transforming the way patients interact with healthcare professionals. Using telehealth software, patients can share their data, medical history, and medical reports with healthcare professionals remotely. There is no need to visit hospitals and clinics at all. Based on the patient’s data and medical test reports, healthcare professionals make the diagnosis and plan the most suitable treatment accordingly.
To fulfill the increasing healthcare demands around the world, telehealth technologies and software are emerging to meet the need. Realizing the sensitive nature of the healthcare field, telehealth software should be smart enough to ensure seamless communication between patients and healthcare professionals.Â
To enhance the online patient experience, medical software should be localized. It makes it easier for both healthcare staff and patients to use the application and communicate over an online portal. You must be aware of medical software localization significance and best practices to effectively carry out the whole localization process.
What Is Medical Software Localization?
Medical software localization is a process of adapting all elements of your telehealth software in a way that patients and healthcare providers can easily interact with it. The content of the software, whether it is textual or visual, should be understandable to the users.Â
Most people think that software localization only includes translations into multiple languages. Instead, there is a need to transform all elements and formatting of your software to the local regulations. The purpose of medical software localization is to make the software application seem relevant to the users considering the local language, cultural intricacies, and other technical requirements of that particular marketplace.
 Any fault in your content can put the patient at higher health risk. You must make a stronger localization methodology to make sure that your medical software meets the FDA and HIPAA standards.
How To Do Medical Software Localization Right?
The increased use of medical software has made it essential for healthcare providers to localize their telehealth applications to global patients. It would not just provide a better user experience, but also reduce the chances of mistakes made on the patient or healthcare professional’s end. Moreover, your medical software has to be compliant with international and foreign market healthcare standards and regulations.  Â
Following are the medical software localization best practices that you must follow to successfully localize your software for international markets.
InternationalizationÂ
Before starting the localization process, make sure your software is internationalized first. The internationalization of your medical software is something you must have taken care of from the beginning. Otherwise, the localization process will be super hectic and time-consuming.Â
You have to make sure that your software elements are not hardcoded, so you can easily make changes to the formatting and design of software for every region. Designing your software using Unicode and hiring developers who are familiar with Unicode software development is crucial.
 It is very difficult to handle the hard-coded elements from your medical software. It would save you from the hassle and make your localization journey easier. For instance, every country uses different formats to display time and date. In the localization process, you have to modify your formatting for every region. If you hard-code one format, your developers have to write new code for every region.
Experienced TeamÂ
Once you have ensured that your software code is internationalized, it’s time to assemble a localization team of qualified and experienced people. Your localization team would comprise developers, translators, editors, and quality assurance staff. Make sure the people you are hiring have extensive experience in software localization in the healthcare industry.
Hiring people with localization expertise would enhance your localization project’s effectiveness. Moreover, it would be even better if you hired an experienced project manager to handle the everyday tasks and manage the localization teams more efficiently.
Workflow AutomationÂ
To achieve the expected outcomes from your localization project, you have to optimize your workflows and localization operations. For this, you must use reliable and professional TMS tools that would automate your workflows and enhance the speed of localization.
 When your workflows are optimized, it not only increases your overall project speed but also enhances accuracy. As most of the operations are handled by machines that require minimal human intervention, there are fewer chances of mistakes as compared to traditional manual workflows.
Automation would allow you to manage more work in less time. You can easily adjust your workflow to the increasing businesses and can manage higher volumes of content on a regular basis.
Strong MethodologyÂ
Healthcare businesses are highly sensitive in nature, and there should be absolutely no room for any mistake. For this, you have to come up with a strong localization methodology that would support your team and manage your project more efficiently.
In this step, you have to establish glossaries and translation memory; define the quality assurance process, and implement advanced security measures. Based on your unique software needs, you have to come up with an effective localization methodology that would help your team manage everyday operations without compromising on quality. You should ensure seamless communication between all team members, so they can easily collaborate on everyday operations.
Moreover, it is also important for you to be aware of all the challenges that you might face down the line, and you must prepare for them as well.
Advanced Security Measures
Considering the sensitive nature of healthcare businesses, you have to make sure that your patients’ information remains confidential. Advanced security measures should be taken to keep the data of patients secure and avoid all sorts of information breaches. For this, you must restrict the data access to authorized members only. Moreover, provides data security precautions to the healthcare staff and patients to reduce security risks. It is also important to perform security risk assessments more frequently.
Testing & Quality Assurance
Your finalized software should be flawless to provide a seamless online telehealth experience to your patient and healthcare provider. In the end, you would test the accuracy and quality of your system using a professional QA system. Every QA system follows different processes for maintaining quality, so you have to make sure that the QA processes are effective enough to detect all potential loopholes in your software.
Rather than handing your software to the same staff who have actually designed the system, you should outsource the system to a third-party service provider for quality assurance. They are more likely to remain biased and be more honest about the overall credibility of your localized medical software.
Conclusion
If you are going to localize a medical, make sure to follow all the steps provided in this article. Following these guidelines would make your localization process much easier and hassle-free. Medical software can have a direct influence on the patient’s health, so you must design and localize it wisely. From assembling a qualified localization team to testing the localized software. Everything should be done appropriately for successful software localization with zero risk.
You can also outsource your medical software localization to a professional localization company. It is a more cost-effective and hassle-free way of software localization.
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