Success story—Dragon Medical One creates faster, more accurate documentation

Background

Nuance Dragon Medical One has been heartily embraced by Perth‑based orthopaedic surgeon, Mr Tao Shan Lim. Mr Lim’s practice is based at Joondalup Health Campus and Glengarry Private Hospital. Determined to increase the accuracy and minimise the time spent creating clinical correspondence and notes, he sought out Dragon’s cloud‑based speech recognition solution as soon as it became available.

“Every patient interaction requires that I generate some form of paperwork,” Mr Lim says. “It may be a letter, operation note, task or message. If you are seeing over 100 patients a week face‑to‑face as well as conducting telehealth consultations, this adds up to a considerable amount of paperwork that you need to create week in and week out. It’s also very time intensive. So, I was keen to make the process faster and more accurate by using a cloud‑based voice recognition software tool.”

Mr Lim consults with patients in his clinic, on the ward, in the emergency department and remotely via telehealth consultation. “I’m on‑the‑go quite a bit, so a voice recognition solution that can keep pace with me and lets me create documents from wherever I am is a huge bonus. I can see a patient on the ward or in the emergency department, dictate a letter and print it to a nearby printer so that I don’t have to hand write notes on paper. It also eliminates the need for me to do the paperwork when I get back to the rooms,” he said.

The appeal of Dragon Medical One

Already familiar with Nuance Dragon Medical Practice Edition, Mr Lim was keen to see what Dragon Medical One could do when it was released. Dragon Medical One is a secure, cloud‑based speech platform used by clinicians around the world to help boost their efficiency and productivity. It delivers fast and accurate dictation and streamlines documentation processes by allowing clinicians to create and edit notes directly into their electronic medical records (EMR) systems and other applications by simply using their voice. Dragon Medical One is also compatible across solutions, platforms and devices, meaning that clinicians can use the software from anywhere, at any time.

After taking Dragon Medical One for a test drive, Mr Lim was impressed with the voice recognition solution. “The capability of Dragon Medical One is just fantastic and its cloud‑based nature is particularly appealing. The fact that your vocabulary database is securely stored in the cloud means that if your computer is damaged, corrupted or lost; you can simply continue working from another computer right away,” he said.

Mr Lim quickly and easily installed the Dragon Medical One software on his computers. Assistance was available from Voice Recognition Australia, a Nuance speech recognition partner. After a video training session, he was ready to use the product.

Dictation with amazing speed

“The benefits of using Dragon Medical One are immediate,” said Mr Lim. “The software lets you dictate notes with amazing speed and accuracy out‑of‑the‑box. By simply speaking I can create letters, tasks and messages at the point of care. My patients are consistently amazed as I dictate and make corrections with them on‑the‑spot. Not only is this process faster, it also means that letters, tasks and messages can be sent instantly. For example, if a patient has an appointment with their physiotherapist straight after the consultation, the letter of correspondence can be finalised and sent immediately so that it is ready and waiting for them by the time they attend the next appointment.”

Dragon Medical One’s autotext feature has also helped Mr Lim increase the detail of his notes whilst saving time. This feature allows clinicians to assign a block of text to a simple voice command. When the voice command is spoken the text instantly appears. For Mr Lim this feature has proved particularly helpful when documenting examination findings and informed consent. “I have previously dictated examination findings in a paragraph, which is more difficult to read and could result in some findings being left out. I can now say a few words, such as ‘consult exam shoulder’ and my whole shoulder examination macro will appear. I can then browse through the text and quickly dictate each finding.”

Documentation with high accuracy and flexibility

According to Mr Lim, Dragon Medical One is also highly accurate.

“Dragon Medical One comes with a dedicated medical dictionary which is customised to your subspecialty. When you are dictating medical terms, the software understands what you are saying and transcribes with amazing accuracy. The number of corrections is minimal out‑of‑the‑box, and it improves over time as the cloud‑based AI engine learns your voice. You can also train it further by adding words and phrases to the custom vocabulary. This is particularly useful when adding subspecialty terminology as well as similar sounding words and names.”

A common misconception is that voice recognition software requires powerful and expensive computers in order for it to run. However, as Dragon Medical One is cloud‑based the software will run on just about any Windows device and without the need for powerful computers. Clinicians also have the added flexibility of using their smartphone as a microphone. By simply installing the PowerMic Mobile app the device is conveniently transformed into a high‑quality, portable microphone.

One feature that has been particularly useful for Mr Lim is the ability to use Dragon Medical One in several consulting rooms at once. “I run a fairly busy practice and typically consult with patients in two rooms whilst having a third room for taking calls and writing tasks and messages. When using the previous computer‑based Dragon product I would carry a laptop computer and headset between the three rooms, which was a bit clunky. With Dragon Medical One the client program is installed in each consulting room so I can dictate to whichever computer I am using.”

“Overall, Dragon Medical One has been a revelation. For a busy doctor its benefits are cumulative because it helps you turnover letters, notes, tasks and messages faster, more securely and with greater accuracy. This saves time, keeps costs and stress levels down, and lets you get more done in your working day.

“Because of Dragon Medical One I have also literally forgotten how to type. The keyboard has been replaced by my voice which I use for just about everything I do on a computer, including writing emails, messaging, browsing and social media. I don’t know where I would be without Dragon Medical One,” he said.