Nordhaven — a coastal city of 540 000 people — runs 14 neighborhood health-care centers, three urgent-care clinics and a 24/7 ambulance service. More than 30 % of residents speak a language other than Swedish at home, and the city routinely receives refugees whose first contact with public services is at a clinic reception desk.

The challenge

Before Tulka, staff booked freelance interpreters through a central dispatch office. Same-day slots were rare, travel time was unpredictable, and rare-language coverage (Tigrinya, Sorani, Uyghur) was almost nonexistent. Patients waited an average of 2 h 10 m, triage nurses juggled family members as ad-hoc interpreters, and medico-legal notes were often incomplete.

The solution

In March 2025 the Health Department deployed Tulka AI Interpreting on every exam-room tablet, front-desk PC and ambulance Toughpad. The roll-out took four weeks:

1. Pilot (Week 1) — Two high-volume clinics tested Tulka in Arabic, Somali and Russian.

2. Training sprint (Week 2–3) — 350 staff completed a 30-minute e-learning module plus on-site demos.

3. City-wide go-live (Week 4) — Geo-fenced QR codes redirected callers to Tulka’s browser client while the app badges were pushed to corporate iPhones.