Every doctor is required to log a certain amount of information about their patients – all of which goes into an electronic health record.
These records hold treatment histories, diagnoses, medications, allergies and laboratory results in extensive detail, as it's necessary when a patient receives care from multiple doctors or sees another GP. Essentially, every person will have a medical database that's kept up to date whenever they visit practitioners.
This information logging can be a problem, however, as doctors need to actually sit down and write out these records, which can take time away from caring for patients.
While it may seem like the only option for doctors is to simply work later, slaving away over extensive notes, there's a better solution.
Using voice recognition technology
Powerful voice recognition software such as Dragon Medical Software can allow doctors to take their hands off the keyboard, and simply dictate notes directly into the system.
Dictation can speed up writing substantially, as there's no need to type. Doctors simply speak their notes, and Dragon converts the voice into text. With a little practice, it's easy to free up large amounts of time for other work – like caring for patients.
In fact, it's possible to dictate a significant amount of data with voice recognition, often in more detail and clarity than standard writing.
What are some of the other key benefits?
Of course, these aren't the only benefits of Dragon Medical – it's also up to 99 per cent accurate straight out of the box – which means the required voice training will only serve to improve its function.
This is also important when writing medical notes, as the information needs to be accurate.
Here are two other important benefits to be aware of:
- It includes medical vocabularies: Dragon has support for nearly 80 medical specialties and subspecialties, which means doctors won't have to spend unnecessary time training new words into the software.
- Better quality medical records: Doctors may feel pressured to get notes into a system sometimes, which could lead to substandard records. Dragon fixes this, as doctors simply say everything they feel is necessary – without having to spend time typing.
Voice Recognition software is one of the best ways for doctors to start keeping better records – not to mention helping them save time by both reducing the chance of error and speeding up the writing process.