02-03-2013, 12:01 PM
Electronic Medical Records and Speech Recognition
ABSTRACT
One of the many of the trends that our typical voice recognition software user has been moving towards is more mobile, portable and wireless options for remote dictation. When voice recognition software first came out many years ago, about the only option a user had was to dictate directly into a desktop PC. As laptops evolved and became faster and just about as powerful as the desktop PC, voice recognition software users were granted a bit more flexibility concerning when and where they dictated. Then came the release of high-quality digital recorders which allowed for mobile dictation but the digital recorders of a few years ago had lower sampling rates than those of today, and left a great deal to be desired as far as speech accuracy once the voice was converted to .wav file format and then transcribed by Dragon NaturallySpeaking®. Today's recorders such as the Sony BM-1 and the Olympus DS-2200 offer some of the highest sampling rates of any digital recorder which equates to a higher degree of voice recognition accuracy; almost the same percentage accuracy as live dictation using a headset plugged into a PC sound card.
For the ultimate in mobile dictation, many users are starting to become more familiar with tablet PCs which offer wireless portability for dictation, yet weigh just a few pounds and are about the size of a standard legal pad. These completely self-contained tablet PCs offer the same power as many desktop and laptop computers but with a new degree of mobility that users had not experienced before. Some of the new models from Motion Computing such as the LE1600 and the LS800 offer superb accuracy with Dragon NaturallySpeaking even with the built-in array microphone, which up until now was almost unheard of. For those who still want to have a keyboard and mouse, most tablet PCs can be plugged into a docking station and thus can also have a keyboard and mouse available. In Trends, we see a great future and much potential in tablet PCs for use with voice recognition software. If one of the slight disadvantages of a tablet PC is its lack of a standard keyboard, the use of voice recognition software certainly remedies the situation by giving the ability to the user to compose text at up to 160 words per minute with up to 99% accuracy.
The first environment where the combination of the tablet PC and voice recognition software seems to make the most sense is the medical field. Imagine a physician or nurse being able to simply dictate patient information into a small portable tablet PC and have the patient record and other patient data generated instantaneously with no transcription turnaround time and no outside transcription costs. This also helps keep patient data much more confidential because electronic data can be password-protected and encrypted. And it means less paper around a medical office for others to see. Tablet PCs in many cases are integrated with Dragon NaturallySpeaking Medical version 8.1 and the appropriate Electronic Medical Record depending on the size and type of practice. This can offer an extremely powerful tool to physicians and other health-care providers who need the power and flexibility of an EMR, but want to voice automate the process of composing patient records. And, this process can be completely wireless and mobile at the same time. Most physicians are accustomed already to carrying a paper file or chart around with them from exam room to exam room. This scenario is not much different, except that now it is an electronic tablet which can provide instant communication to the front office for patient information including billing, records, prescriptions and all medical correspondence relating to that particular patient.
Tablet PCs and voice recognition software however are not restricted to the medical environment. Just about anyone in any profession can benefit from the ability to create documentation on a wireless and lightweight mobile platform while sharing key information with a home-office, satellite office or even a home-office. We can certainly see in the very near future that tablet PCs will continue to grow in popularity and the use of voice recognition software will continue to be a part of that new technology growth.