ShareMedical

2018: Start of the AI translator in hospitals

In August, 2018 the Japanese startup of ShareMedical founded in 2014 starts in Japan AI service which will help local clinics to break a language barrier at communication with patients from other countries, Nikkei reports.

Japan enjoys popularity at tourists: in 2017 the Land of the rising sun was visited by more than 28 million people, it is three times more, than a decade ago. Also in Japan the number of foreign workers increases. As result, patients foreigners even more often address to the Japanese clinics.

Realtime translation: in the Japanese clinics foreigners communicate with doctors through AI services

The ShareMedical service using artificial intelligence will allow personnel of hospitals to speak by phone with the people who are not knowing Japanese. Transfer of a conversation is in real time executed using a cloud system. Service will automatically recognize languages which interlocutors by phone speak, and translates phrases, transforming a voice to the text and back. Participants of a conversation hear the translation into the language in the form of the speech synthesized by the computer.

As founders of service assure, on processing of each remark about a second and as the machine translation system is supplied with artificial intelligence leaves, the translated phrases turn out more similar to the natural human speech.

The ShareMedical service will recognize 17 different languages and is compatible to plain old telephone service that eliminates need for installation of the additional specialized hardware or the software.

The payment for use of service will make from 20 to 30 yens for a conversation (18-27 American cents). For comparison, the service of telephone interpretation executed by the person in Japan costs approximately 300 yens in a minute ($2.7).

ShareMedical expects to attract until the end of 2018 financial year about 4 thousand clients, including corporate customers and individuals. It is expected that translation AI service will be useful not only to medical institutions, but also retail stores and tourists.^[1]

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