Is voice recognition the new solution for medical transcription needs? Voice recognition or speech recognition is one of the new developments in the medical transcription field. It has been touted as the solution for a health provider’s documentation needs.
How does it work? The doctor is offered a digital platform by the Voice recognition service provider where the doctor can dial in and dictate his patient notes at the end of the day. The software converts it to typed form, which is made available to the doctor to edit and correct as needed.
Seems simple enough. But is it as simple as that? Apparently not! Voice recognition needs to be evaluated on all the criteria used while finalizing a healthcare facility’s medical transcription service provider.
Time saved: When medical transcription needs are outsourced one of the main benefits is the time saving factor. Time is a precious commodity for Doctors and they would like to utilize it for providing quality care to their patients. But when voice recognition software is used the doctor has to spend more time on it in the following areas:
1. Training time: Voice recognition software requires the doctor to personally ‘train’ the software on the speech pattern, accent, standard terms and various nuances of his/her speech pattern so that the software can ‘learn’ it and adapt accordingly. This could involve a huge time commitment from the doctor using it, which he may ill afford to make.
2. Time for dictation: Voice recognition software requires the doctor to change his style of dictation to include punctuations, grammar, spellings, detailed terminology, paragraph and report start and ending etc., as opposed to the free flow form of dictations that the doctors are used to.
3. Time for editing: Unlike the traditional method of medical transcription where the records are subject to rigorous proof reading and quality checks, here the doctor needs to spend considerable time editing and correcting before signing off on the reports.
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Accuracy: The accuracy levels of the finished reports is of utmost importance as it affects care of the patients at every level as well as forming the basis for all further documentation needs. The accuracy level from voice recognition software is found to be about 60%-65%. That means correcting and editing the documents have to make up for the remaining 35%-40% accuracy.
Cost: The cost factor for voice recognition software will vary according to the number of users and the size of the organization. It will also have to factor in additional costs required for editing the documents to an acceptable level. One may find that it is costing more per line than was quoted in the beginning.
Learning curve: When healthcare facilities look for solutions for producing their patients’ medical records they would like to have solutions that are expert and accurate from the very beginning. In the case of voice recognition software there is a definite learning curve that affects the quality of finished reports till the software ‘learns’ to follow a particular doctor’s speech patterns and even then the accuracy levels are only 60%-65%.
Flexibility: When new doctors are added to the practice the voice recognition software has to be trained further to accept the speech nuances of the new joiners. There is no flexibility offered by voice recognition software for this.
In conclusion we can safely say that voice recognition software will never be able to completely replace manual medical transcription. The important point to be considered here is that medical records are created of human beings, dictated by human beings and therefore needs another human being to transcribe it. Medical transcriptionists will have an important role to play at least as editors and proofreaders.
Medical transcription requires a certain amount of training, subjective judgment and understanding the context to be accurate and relevant, which will not be possible to achieve completely through software, no matter how expertly created.
For the transcription needs of a healthcare facility one should look for a company that offers commitment on accuracy, turnaround time, reasonable pricing and data security.
TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has used their extensive background in information technology and their experience in serving the needs of the healthcare sector to provide affordable and integrated medical transcription solutions.
TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of accuracy and all this with technology that is advanced but easy to use!
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