Advances in speech recognition have helped streamline transcription and recording of patient encounters. Most developments have been in back-end speech recognition, or systems that generate text from dictations that transcriptionists and editors correct and process. But there has been recent growth in front-end speech recognition, which involves systems that require providers to edit the transcribed text immediately after dictating.
Scribe Healthcare Technologies, Inc. (http://www.scribe.com) now offers an affordable solution to accelerate charting and populating patient records with front-end speech recognition. This addition allows customers to single source Scribe for all of their medical documentation needs.
The rate of EMR/EHR adoption in the United States has been increasing since passage of the HITECH Act in 2009, which offers economic incentives for providers who use health information technology in a meaningful way. Implementation must start by 2014. However, research shows that fewer than half of the providers who have implemented EMRs/EHRs are generating complete patient histories or utilizing the multifunctional capabilities that make the technology more valuable.
In a study completed by Senior Research Director Doug Thompson of The Advisory Board Company, some hospitals report that front-end speech recognition can actually speed EMR/EHR adoption and improves the quality of narrative documentation.
By employing Scribe’s Real-time Dictation, clinicians use a microphone, mobile phone or digital recorder to dictate via Internet connection. The sound file is converted to text within seconds of dictating and is stored directly in the EMR/EHR, simplifying complex data entry. Dictation converted to text populates discrete data fields in EMRs/EHRs, eliminates “cutting and pasting,” and utilizes an array of customized voice commands, macros and short cuts to save keystrokes and speed up documentation. Support for Meaningful Use requirements is achieved through real-time dictation and automation of clinical workflow.
Speech recognition’s ability to accurately recognize a dictator’s voice is dependent on training and the system used. Scribe delivers high levels of accuracy at a fraction of the cost of competing front-end solutions. A user can create a voice profile with 15-20 minutes of audio and be operational after as little as one hour of training. Scribe experts ensure a smooth user onboarding process and minimal involvement from the dictator to create the profile. The same user’s voice profile can be used in multiple applications such as a practice management system or email without an integration, hefty upfront costs, storage requirements, or maintenance fees.
Universal accessibility and reasonable cost make this system ideal for a wide variety of users, not just providers using EMRs/EHRs. A brief issued by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) indicated that the experience of radiologists using front-end speech recognition, separate from an EMR, is overwhelmingly positive. Like all of Scribe’s products, our Real-time Dictation operates in the cloud with no desktop software to install and is compatible with both Windows and MAC operating systems. Data is encrypted between highly secure servers in a US-based data center.