Introduction
Measuring medical translation quality is vital to ensure safety, compliance and trust. This guide lists actionable KPIs —from accuracy to turnaround time— and shows how to display them in a QA dashboard. Use these metrics to cut risk and rework.
Key KPIs for medical translation
- Accuracy
- Percentage of segments matching the reference.
- Method: sample review against a reference version.
- Percentage of segments matching the reference.
- Terminology consistency
- Adherence to the approved glossary.
- Metric: % glossary matches per document.
- Adherence to the approved glossary.
- Error rate
- Errors per 1,000 words (terminology, omissions, units).
- Categorize by severity (critical/high/medium/low).
- Errors per 1,000 words (terminology, omissions, units).
- Turnaround time (TAT)
- Average time from brief to final delivery.
- Metric: hours or days per SLA.
- Average time from brief to final delivery.
- Readability score
- Flesch or equivalent index for the target language.
- Goal: patient-facing vs professional documents.
- Flesch or equivalent index for the target language.
- Regulatory compliance
- % of mandatory elements present (legal phrasing, disclaimers).
- Verified by legal/SME reviewer.
- % of mandatory elements present (legal phrasing, disclaimers).
- Client/Reviewer satisfaction
- CSAT or NPS per project.
- Use qualitative feedback to complement scores.
- CSAT or NPS per project.
How to measure: practical methods
- Random sampling of critical segments.
- Scoring rubrics (1–5) for accuracy and fluency.
- Standardized error taxonomy.
- Leverage CAT tools for automatic metrics (TM matches, untranslated segments).
Dashboard & reporting
- Minimum dashboard: Accuracy %, Error rate, Avg TAT, Glossary match %, CSAT.
- Update cadence: weekly or per delivery.
- Visuals: trendlines, error heatmaps, priority tables.
Quick implementation (3 steps)
- Define KPIs and thresholds (e.g., accuracy >98%).
- Create sampling routines and scoring rubrics.
- Automate reporting from CAT tools + QA checklists.
Conclusion
Measuring medical translation quality helps teams act on data and reduce regulatory risk. At SumaLatam we define KPIs, build dashboards and audit translations to improve SLAs and compliance. Contact us for a free assessment.
