Sanni 
Pajarinen is an interdisciplinary student at Tampere University who works as a Technical Documentation Specialist at Tieto Healthcare and Welfare unit in Tampere. Her job focuses on translating the contents of Tieto Lifecare patient information system and other healthcare documentation into English for international markets. Sanni also helps to create uniform and effective terminology for everyone working in the healthcare domain of Tieto.
Gaining insight
Tieto – as we all know – is an incredible combination of different expertise and talent. Not only that, Tieto brings together people from different nationalities and cultures. I myself have gained personal insight into Tieto’s healthcare business and company culture since I started as a Technical Documentation Specialist summer trainee this year. In fact, healthcare forms a unique cluster of professional diversity inside Tieto – one where nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals can meet programmers, ICT professionals and business experts. For me, the interesting question was, what happens when all these individuals are teamed up and what language do they use professionally and culturally?
Learning with impact
My tasks as a Technical Documentation Specialist include translating healthcare documents from Finnish into English and learning to use Lifecare, Tieto’s vast patient information system. Getting to know the language used in Lifecare has been the core of my work, and much of what I have accomplished has served to make the solution more internationally accessible.
Since terms and definitions play such a critical role in healthcare, their unique meaning must be maintained across different languages and fields of expertise. We are talking about the welfare of real people, so the terminology must always be precise and unambiguous. That’s why it has been incredibly rewarding to see how everyone in my unit has worked together towards this goal, regardless of their nationality and profession.
Testing is caring
Still, no matter how serious the condition or emergency is, misunderstandings cannot be avoided in the language of the healthcare branch. To test the usability of any healthcare system, you need to create test patients and simulate real-life procedures on them. This can be really intense, because healthcare software development testing includes making new babies, terminating test patients and having patients bouncing here and there, trying to make it to the operation room with no luck. No wonder, sitting in the office can be amusing when you overhear your colleagues struggling to bring test patients back to life. I also heard that some people get too attached to their test patients, so they tend to create milder diagnoses for them to pass away from. How often do you face these kinds of issues in your daily work?
Humor aside, there has always been a profound sense of caring and humanity present in my work. The people working in Tieto Healthcare spend countless hours trying to provide even better systems and functions for the healthcare professionals out there in the field.
And I was always amazed by how my team tested the system relentlessly to improve a single application, whether it was home care, emergency care or maternal care. I never saw them become frustrated or give in. Instead, they tackled every programming challenge as if they were dealing with a new patient arriving for a doctor’s appointment. What made this especially impressive is that not all my colleagues are healthcare professionals.
Healthy teamwork
So far, my experience at Tieto has been about combining the two worlds of tech and healthcare, as well as witnessing remarkable multi-professional teamwork. When I started at the beginning of the summer, I wanted to complete my internship richer in experience and knowledge.
Now, as I continue working part-time at Tieto, I feel like I’ve definitely reached my goal. Tieto has taught me to believe in myself and embrace all my qualities, because not everyone has to be a tech expert – or a doctor. That’s why we work together.