A new study which analysed the impact of the deployment of speech recognition within the Emergency Department (ED) at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has revealed the technology is 40% faster than handwriting or typing clinical documentation.
The study results are derived from an in-depth structured questionnaire capturing the perceptions of participating clinicians in ED. The study said by extrapolating the reported documentation time savings per patient over a year is the equivalent of gaining almost two full-time clinical staff in ED.
The Trust deployed Nuance Dragon Medical speech recognition integrated into the EPR to help its clinicians overcome the growing administration burden.
The results from the study showed that the use of speech recognition reduced time spent documenting care, boosted the quality of the patient record and improved the speed of communication. The quality of the patient record was also boosted. 86% of clinicians involved in the deployment agreed that speech recognition enabled more complete patient notes. Nine in 10 of clinicians felt that using speech recognition compared to handwriting and typing saved time, improved the quality of the notes and increased the speed of communication with others.
Other findings from the report include:
- Speech recognition is now the clinicians’ preferred means of capturing clinical documentation into the EPR across ED
- All clinicians reported that the speech recognition deployment in ED had a positive impact
- Most (67%) of clinicians believed patients had no concerns with their use of speech recognition
Commenting on the findings, Dr Andrew Adair, ED consultant and CCIO, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust stated: “Speech recognition has transformed our ED, releasing our doctors and nurses from the shackles of clinical documentation and enabling them to spend more time treating patients.”
The study undertaken by Nuance Communications in May and June 2017.
