Stream: implementers
Topic: translation of codesystems to other languages
Jens Villadsen (Nov 24 2020 at 18:36):
Does anyone know of a publicly available service that can translate/add designations for other languages (eg. Google Translate) / make CodeSystem supplements that is freely available that supports both STU3 and/or R4? If not, I'll consider doing it (open source). Does anyone other also need this? (@Alexander Henket / @Oliver Egger and other non-native-english people - I imagine you also do need translations once in a while for your codesystems to your users)?
Jens Villadsen (Nov 24 2020 at 18:53):
@Grahame Grieve are you aware of any such services that takes a Codesystem as parameter and then returns the same CodeSystems now with designations or a CodeSystem supplement?
Oliver Egger (Nov 24 2020 at 19:40):
till now the ValueSets we used are translated by humans and reviewed afterwards, I'm not aware of any automatic conversion and don't think it would add much value, sometimes it also very difficult event to find a matching translation for specific concept ... depending perhaps also on the context you are using it for.
Jens Villadsen (Nov 24 2020 at 19:43):
I would like the machine to do the grunt work and then afterwards spend the time correcting it. Initially, I need the core codesystems translated, which is quite a few codes
Jens Villadsen (Nov 24 2020 at 19:44):
Im not going for perfect here - Im going for something to ease the pain
Jens Villadsen (Nov 24 2020 at 19:45):
A codesystem like eg. https://terminology.hl7.org/1.0.0/CodeSystem-v3-MaritalStatus.html doesn't really seem that context dependant ... but I'll guess I'll find out
Grahame Grieve (Nov 24 2020 at 19:57):
I haven't seen anything that does that, but I share oliver's scepticism
Jens Villadsen (Nov 24 2020 at 20:49):
duly noted
Jens Villadsen (Nov 24 2020 at 20:54):
@Oliver Egger FWIW - I'm not trying to bypass the review process. I'm trying to ease the mental load
Alexander Henket (Nov 25 2020 at 07:49):
@Sander Mertens Is this something the tool you were working on could be of service with?
Alexander Henket (Nov 25 2020 at 07:51):
Sander is in our terminology team/SNOMED NRC and was working on tooling that would also be able to export CodeSystem supplements as part of the endeavor around ehDSI ValueSets.
Sander Mertens (Nov 25 2020 at 10:56):
I'm not aware of any systems that can do this, and my toolkit unfortunately won't be able to help either.
For the translation of the ehDSI ValueSets, I wrote a fairly simple script that tries to retrieve a Dutch translation based on OID+code from all available API's (EDQM, LOINC, SNOMED, etc), with fallback to earlier human translations if none are available in the releases. I could imagine adding a google translate fallback after that, as a suggestion to a human reviewer.
This does not return a FHIR resource, but writes to an xls file in the format demanded by the MVC project.
For the Dutch SNOMED translations, we have a selfbuilt service that can deduce a likely translation based on prior translations of the attributes/parents of the concept, but I don't think that will help here either. One of the options that we avoid for the sake of concordance, but as you already mentioned might be able to be of use, is an API connection to google translate. I don't know about your language, but the Dutch translation of most of the codes in https://terminology.hl7.org/1.0.0/CodeSystem-v3-MaritalStatus.html seems pretty viable to me.
As to a service that assists in automated calls to google translate based on a FHIR CodeSystem... I'm afraid that would have to be a new DIY solution. I can imagine there is a demand for this! The API is no longer free AFAIK though...
Jens Villadsen (Nov 25 2020 at 14:19):
ok, - I'll keep you posted
Jens Villadsen (Nov 27 2020 at 15:04):
Prototype is expected to be freely availabe at github within a week or two. A google cloud account will be needed in order to use it as it relies on Google Translate
Jens Villadsen (Nov 30 2020 at 11:48):
What would a proper value for designation.use be in terms of SNOMED for flagging a given translation being oriented for non-clinical/citizen use?
Grahame Grieve (Nov 30 2020 at 11:51):
that sounds like a #snomed question, but is it just a patient orientated term in a language of choice?
Jens Villadsen (Nov 30 2020 at 11:58):
maybe I'm overcomplicating something here ... the intention was not just languageof choice.
Jens Villadsen (Nov 30 2020 at 12:22):
Is there a SNOMED value for a use that is intended for plain civilians?
Lin Zhang (Nov 30 2020 at 13:39):
There was a consumer-oriented codesystem called CHV (Consumer Health Vocsbulary). But maybe it is not maintained for years.
Vadim Peretokin (Dec 04 2020 at 06:31):
I've got some experience in doing translations and this is where machine translation can be of great help to automate things en-masse. Using Crowdin, you can plug in IBM Watson / Amazon / DeepL and other translators and they'll all offer you suggestions for your source string. This made translating 200 country names ridiculously easy for example, it was just point and click on a suggestion that was correct. A lot simpler than typing each out by hand. I suggest we look into hooking up into this infrastructure.
Vadim Peretokin (Dec 04 2020 at 06:32):
image.png example
1) source string
2) translation goes here
3) translation suggestions, click on any to pick one if it fits. Massively reduces the mental load of translation
Jens Villadsen (Jan 19 2021 at 22:30):
https://github.com/trifork/fhir-translator - here you are (@Alexander Henket , @Vadim Peretokin, @Sander Mertens ).
Jens Villadsen (Jan 19 2021 at 22:33):
a bit rough - but it certainly works
Jens Villadsen (Jan 20 2021 at 15:07):
@Oliver Egger , @Grahame Grieve feel free to apply scepticism :)
Oliver Egger (Jan 20 2021 at 15:24):
:+1: :joy: I will give it a try as soon as we have a need
Michael Lawley (Jan 20 2021 at 22:54):
@Jens Villadsen the consumer-friendly is really a #terminology question and there's a ticket https://jira.hl7.org/browse/FHIR-19960
Jens Villadsen (Jan 20 2021 at 23:42):
@Michael Lawley I totally agree
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
