Voice recognition software has a long and interesting history, much of which has been dogged by technology that hadn’t quite matured. It’s always had great promise, however. Over time, voice recognition products have become much more sophisticated, so much so that they’re been adopted by many doctors and hospitals.
Now, a growing number of voice recognition vendors are jumping into the EMR space, according to a piece in USA TODAY. And why not? It just makes sense. (The only question is whether the products which, using a special pen and board, turn handwritten notes into electronic ones.)
This is happening for two main reasons, in my opinion. Given that EMRs are pushing charts into the digital era, it only makes sense to create digital dictation that more or less transcribes itself.
Not only that, given the exploding rate at which doctors live on their smartphones or tablets, it’s extremely helpful for them to be able to dictate notes from the road which instantly merge into the chart.
One vendor that’s jumped on the bandwagon, not surprisingly, is M-Modal, which allows doctors to record information in real time on mobile devices. The company offers interactive clinical documentation options as well as speech and natural language understanding technology and medical transcription.
Another competitor in this space is Nuance, the maker of Dragon VR software. Nuance is selling a new product, Dragon Medical 360, which is embedded into hospitals’ EMRs.
According to the newspaper, as doctors speak their patient impressions, the system validates medical facts, highlights mistakes or inconsistencies and even ask follow-up questions. Doctors can edit the notes after they’re dictated. Adding to the cool factor, Dragon Medical analyzes narratives and makes note of clinical and quality indicators.
These are just a couple of headliners quoted by USA TODAY. If you want to know which other VR companies are throwing their hat into the ring, brace yourself and search “voice recognition EMR integration” on your search engine of choice. We’re talking tons of options here. Are any of you giving an integrated VR/EMR combo a try?
