Translation Apps for Nursing Staff from Abroad – Potential and Needs Analysis

Description

This project, which takes the form of a preliminary study, is working to define the framework conditions for a research project that will be dedicated to exploring the potential offered by so-called speech-to-speech translation (S2ST) for verbal communication between foreign-language nursing staff and older German-speaking patients. The nursing sector finds itself confronted with immense challenges. While many employees would like to give up their work in retirement and nursing homes, the demand for staff is growing.

Agencies that recruit foreign nursing staff for positions in German-speaking Switzerland generally ensure that they attend a course in standard German. In practice, however, many workers are not yet confident in the languages upon taking up their roles. At the same time, elderly individuals often experience age- or illness-related hearing and speech impairments and are used to communicating in Swiss German. This project explores the potential offered by artificial intelligence to support communication in such settings and evaluates the need for an industry-specific solution that uses automatic speech recognition, machine translation and speech synthesis to translate and render phrases and sentences in real time.