Three extensions that gave a legacy clinical system a second language — and a spell-checker.
Dolomiti Sportclinic writes its reports in a web ERP that offers no spell-check, no translation and no dictation. Replacing it was never on the table. Instead we added three browser extensions that reach into the system the doctors already use and give them correction, translation and speech-to-text where they type.
- Role
- Product · Architecture · Full-stack development · Delivery
- Languages
- German · Italian · English
- Status
- In daily clinical use
Introduction
The software was not going to change. The work had to.
South Tyrolean clinicians switch between German and Italian mid-sentence and type fast between patients. Their reporting system is a long-lived web application with no text assistance of any kind, and reports go out to patients, insurers and referring physicians. Rewriting the ERP would have been a multi-year project. The workflow around it could be fixed in weeks.
150,000+
times the extensions have been used
28.7M
words processed
~10,000
hours of manual work saved
Correction
Proofreading
Fixes spelling, punctuation and light grammar in place, in whichever language the text was written — without touching the content, dates or structure. One field, or all nine report sections in sequence.
Translation
German · Italian · English
Translates a report section into the target language and appends it beneath the original, so the field carries both versions. Re-translating replaces the previous result rather than stacking a third copy.
Dictation
Speech to text
Records in the browser, transcribes, cleans up the transcript, and types it into the report. On a structured report it splits what was said across the correct sections by itself.
Demonstration
What the doctor actually sees.
A reconstruction of the correction extension against a stand-in for the clinical system, rebuilt from its own markup and styles. Press Korrigieren and watch the field — every word that changes gets its underline.
Clinical report — outpatient
Anamnesis
Sample text — no patient data.
Translation
Translation that appends, not replaces.
The translation extension writes its result underneath the original behind a language marker, so the field ends up bilingual — typed in the way the clinic sees it arrive.
Clinical report — outpatient
Anamnesis
Sample text — no patient data.
Technology
Proven tools, chosen as a system.
Nothing in the browser that can go stale, and the moving parts kept in services behind it.
Architecture
Reach into a system you are not allowed to change.
The clinical application is untouched. Everything happens in the browser, in the doctor's own session, between the moment they finish typing and the moment they click.
In the browser
Clinical ERP
Unmodified. The doctor types; the application is never touched.
Browser extension
Runs in the doctor's own session, on an explicit click.
- Screen recognised
- Active field resolved
Native input event
The application updates as if a human had typed.
Off the browser
Only the selected passage crosses
Django service
Correction & translation
FastAPI service
Dictation
Language model
HIPAA amendment · zero retention
Recognise the screen
The report view and the secretary view are laid out differently. The extension works out which one is open and adapts what it offers — the all-sections action simply disappears where it makes no sense.
Find the right field
A report is split across nine sections behind a tab strip. The extension resolves which tab is active and reads the field behind it; for the all-sections run it walks the tabs in order and returns the doctor to where they started.
Send only the text
The selected passage goes to a service that applies the language model and returns the corrected text — nothing else about the patient or the session travels with it.
Write it back convincingly
Setting a value on a field is not enough for a modern web framework to notice. The extension writes the text and then dispatches the same input event the browser would, so the application's own model updates as if a human had typed it.
Legal
Where the legal line sits.
These tools carry patient reports, so what may be done with that text — and by whom — is settled in writing before a single request leaves the browser.
A signed HIPAA amendment
Processing runs under a HIPAA business-associate amendment obtained for this work, rather than default consumer terms. It names what the provider may do with the text and what it may not.
Zero Data Retention
Requests are covered by a zero-retention arrangement: the text produces the answer and is not stored afterwards, and is never used to train a model.
Only the passage travels
The field's text is the whole payload. No patient identifier, record number or session context is attached to a request, so there is nothing to correlate even in transit.
Nothing is kept on our side
The services hold no database of report text. A request is processed and answered; afterwards there is nothing left to breach, subpoena or export.
The clinic decides, every time
Nothing is sent in the background. Each extension acts on an explicit click, on the one field the doctor is working in — so the decision to send clinical text stays a human one.
The clinic owns what was built
Source, builds and signing material belong to the clinic. Invariance keeps no copy of clinical content and no independent right to use it.
Result
Used every day, by people who never asked for software.
The three extensions are in daily use at the clinic. The reporting system they attach to has not been modified once — which is exactly why the project was possible at all. The same pattern applies anywhere a business is stuck with a system it cannot replace but cannot keep working in either.