Medical dictation: what is it, and how can it help?

Medical dictation is speech recognition software for the healthcare sector. It allows healthcare professionals to automatically turn their words into text, saving them precious time on admin.

Speech recognition software saves time; that much has been made clear in various sectors. But in no sector is it clearer than in healthcare. Medical dictation can save healthcare professionals hours every day, by automating transcriptions and data population.

In today’s blog, we’ll be looking at the ways in which medical dictation can help reduce the burden of admin in the healthcare sector, as well as Nuance Dragon Medical One (DMO), the speech recognition software designed with healthcare in mind.

How medical dictation can help the healthcare sector

Speech recognition software can make healthcare professionals’ lives a great deal easier, by allowing for automated transcriptions of everything they (and their patients) say. That’s the main benefit of this tech; during a consultation, the physician doesn’t need to worry about constantly taking notes, and instead can focus on their patient.

Nuance Dragon Medical One: medical dictation designed for the healthcare sector

But what makes Dragon Medical One so suited to healthcare? The answer’s in the name; it was designed specifically for medical professionals. This is most apparent in the built-in vocabulary, which, as well as featuring just about every other word you can think of, boasts an extensive range of medical terms. It's also 99% accurate, so even if there are errors in the transcription, they’ll be minimal.

And it’s not just during consultations that healthcare professionals can benefit from DMO either. They can use their voice to do a whole lot more…

Features of Dragon Medical One

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s take a look at some of the specific features on offer with Dragon Medical One:

• Advanced voice commands allow for hands free use of your computer, which speeds up the process of just about every function you need to carry out: writing and sending emails, inputting data, navigating between documents, searching online, opening and closing tabs… the list is endless, really. Whatever you’d ordinarily do by clicking and typing, you can probably do with your voice. You can also customise your own voice commands, which can save a great deal of time on repetitive tasks.
• You don’t need a fancy microphone to use DMO. Any microphone compatible with your computer is compatible with DMO, and that includes your smartphone. This means on-the-go transcriptions, anywhere. Also, by pairing your smartphone with the PowerMic Mobile application, you can use your phone itself as a wireless microphone, with everything transcribed automatically onto your computer.
• No voice profile training is required; you can use DMO for transcriptions right out of the box. Plus, accent adjustments and microphone calibration are completely automatic, so accuracy will only increase over time.
• You can also use analytics to track your own usage trends, and see just how much time you’re saving every week by using DMO (on average, you’ll be spending 50% less time on documentation).

Medical dictation: what is it, and how can it help? (conclusion)

Medical dictation can free up the time of just about anyone working in the healthcare sector, and can be a gamechanger for physicians whose paperwork is otherwise interminable, as well as healthcare professionals who (as we discussed in a recent article) have dyslexia. Relentless admin is a burden, especially in the NHS. Dragon Medical One is changing that.

We help organisations reduce the time and cost of producing correspondence via speech recognition software, information workflow apps, and digital dictation hardware & software. Think we could help your business? Book a consultation today.