Oxford Outcomes Case Study

Oxford Outcomes is an international consultancy which specialises in patient-reported outcomes, health economics, epidemiology and health programme evaluation. The company has offices in Oxford, Vancouver and Washington D.C.

Oxford Outcomes prepares and tests surveys for medical trials for diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, working for major companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson. In order to ensure the accuracy of surveys and clarity of questions, in-country linguistic validation takes place with a number of patients and a doctor working as an investigator in order to deliver a localised version of each survey.

Web-Translations aids each linguistic validation project by building relationships with members of the local medical community, who act as proofreaders and in-country investigators, to ensure that once published and on general release a questionnaire in a foreign language is as accurate as its English counterpart.

Challenge

  • To source translators, proofreaders and investigators specialised in medical translation
  • To source translators for rare languages
  • To source translators who no longer live in their native country for community languages such as Gujurati for the US market
  • To recruit specialists with medical translation experience and excellent references in each country who also have access to patients willing to take part in the research
  • To create translations which reflect the variations within languages in Europe, Asia and the Americas

Solution

  • Pre-project research to identify qualified translators and proofreaders in specific countries with availability over long periods of time
  • The coordination of a number of ongoing linguistic validation projects, managed by one dedicated Project Manager
  • Relationship building with translators around the world to extend Web-Translations’ network of contacts and develop a high quality linguistic validation service

Results

  • Translation, proofreading and reviews of medical documents often with 24 hour turnaround
  • Continued collaboration with Oxford Outcomes on translation, proofreading and investigator sourcing projects for languages such as Russian, Turkish and Spanish
  • Massive growth at Oxford Outcomes with expansion from one office in Oxford to three in major cities of Canada and the USA.