Medical Voice Recognition - A Breakthrough in Healthcare

Medical voice recognition makes a great solution in larger institutions and small practices as well. This technology offers a faster turn-around for reports while promoting accuracy and improving overall efficiency. When it comes to medical voice recognition systems, there are essentially two major players in the industry: Dragon NaturallySpeaking and IBM's ViaVoice.

Both programs are used rather extensively, although many find them to be distinct yet equally effective. ViaVoice is easier to use for beginners and also works a little faster. The Dragon medical voice recognition software offers higher accuracy and is better integrated with more add-on vocabulary options. One advantage ViaVoice has is that it's currently one of the only software solutions available for the Mac OS X, while Dragon NaturallySpeaking caters to the Windows platform. Despite the differences, medical voice recognition programs offer many of the same benefits in the medical field.

What Facilities Benefit from Medical Voice Recognition

The basis of any speech recognition system is to replace the execution of the mouse and keyboard. In order to realize the true benefits of medical voice recognition, a healthcare facility must change their workflow and buy or develop templates and macros which automate the transcription process. This is a small investment that will pay off quickly, as templates and macros help to save time and promote accuracy, whether it's medical voice recognition or a mouse and keyboard is being used.

Although medical voice recognition makes a viable solution for some, it can be very demanding for others and therefore, not as effective as traditional transcribing. Facilities with a high volume of reports should consider a high-end package and assign a clinician to work with it for about a week. By training the software, you help the speech recognition engine recognize your voice which results in less errors and improved accuracy.

Outsourcing Medical Voice Recognition

There are also other options for medical voice recognition transcription, which involves one of the biggest improvements in the industry. This is outsourcing the transcription procedure to an offshore location. In fact, these services are very similar to older forms of transcription, such as banks of transcribers who listened to dictation, manually typed in their report, and turned it over to a physician who signed off on it. The major difference is that these offshore transcribers are located in countries like Pakistan or India, and the dictation reports are transmitted over the internet. Another major difference relates to cost. When medical voice recognition transcriptions are outsourced, the costs can be so much cheaper than services in the United States that it is essentially the best alternative.

There are, however, two things that need to be considered before making such a decision - volume and the HIPAA. If you are involved in a small practice, the volume may not warrant offshore assistance. Secondly, the HIPPA could possibly offer a few local options to make sure you're working with a corporation in compliance with security and privacy regulations.