If you don’t already own a copy of voice recognition software, you probably know someone who does. Some have had great experiences with it, MOST have not. Why?
Voice Recognition Software has come a long way since the early IBM Via Voice and Dragon Naturally Speaking days. But is it there yet? Is it ready to be the documentation solution that you’ve been waiting for all these years? It just might be.
Voice recognition software has been around for longer than you think. Try 1970. It’s sort of one of those technologies that everyone has been waiting for 30 years but it just never really got finished. Like alternative energy cars. However the advancements made in this technology over the past 10 years have been remarkable and more and more products coming to market these days are equipped with voice activation ie. Cell Phones, Cars.
So what does this all mean for healthcare professionals and there endless amounts of paper work? The technology is mature enough to revolutionize your documentation, however it is not for the faint of heart. Do not expect to be able to go to your local computer store pick up a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking and be able to dictate that 10 page report that night. Your success will be based on these three factors:
Hardware – A powerful computer and a digital quality microphone (usually USB) is your first step to starting out on the right foot. Your computer should be at least a 1 GHz and should have 512MB RAM. A headset microphone or digital array microphone is your best bet. If you’re thinking about using a Tablet PC, Motion Computing’s M1400 has a built-in microphone that works very well.
Training – The reality 9 out of 10 people will not go home and read the entire users manual to learn all the features that the software has to offer. Training from someone who is experienced in using the software is a great way to go. An hour or two will go a long way in getting a good voice profile setup.
Practice – Expect to spend at least 5-10 hours of learning the features, training your profile, making corrections and getting comfortable with using it from day to day.
Taking these simple steps should get you to a level where you will favor voice recognition over typing, and it’s only up from there. The end result of the development of this technology will be a universal profile that will achieve extremely high accuracy with no training at all, meaning anyone can just pick up the microphone and use it. This will then allow for the development of real-time language translators (already in the works).
