Dragon Medical One proves transformational for GPs in the COVID‑19 pandemic
Mount Pleasant Medical Practice improved productivity to spend more time with patients.
Tackling outdated work processes
The doctors and support staff at Mount Pleasant Medical Practice frequently found themselves carrying out admin tasks outside working hours. The extra demands caused by the 2020 COVID‑19 pandemic accelerated the need to tackle outdated work processes. They turned to Dragon Medical One.
Challenge:
- To improve documentation turnaround time and manage an increasing workload with fewer resources.
Solution:
- Dragon Medical One speech recognition software
- SpeechMike Premium Touch Dictation Microphones
- Advice, installation, training and support from Nuance reseller partner, Voice Technologies
Results
- Patient notes and correspondence are now completed in a single step.
- Pressure on staff has been eased and admin is managed within working hours.
- Staff morale has been boosted.
Background
Mount Pleasant Medical Practice in Greenock, Scotland, provides General Practitioner (GP) services to over 6,700 patients under Greater Glasgow & Clyde Health Board. The team comprises six doctors and support staff.
When a member of the secretarial team retired, the Practice was keen to look at how technology could help them avoid the remaining resources becoming over‑burdened and the turnaround time for patient correspondence slowing down. The Practice’s document processes were already time‑consuming, and the doctors and support staff frequently found themselves carrying out admin tasks outside working hours. The extra demands caused by the 2020 COVID‑19 pandemic accelerated the need to tackle outdated work processes.
The practice wanted a local supplier to implement a technology‑driven solution and chose Nuance reseller partner, Voice Technologies, because of their proven track record of implementing speech recognition systems in GP practices.
Solution
Voice Technologies’ experts installed Nuance’s secure, cloud-based speech recognition software, Dragon Medical One (DMO). The software converts spoken words into text which is either inserted into a document or accepted as a voice command. As well as containing medical terminology, DMO allows the Practice staff to create documents inside Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook and EMIS allowing them to capture and document patient data quickly.
DMO typically achieves 99% dictation accuracy, speech recognition is three to five times faster than typing, and dictations do not need to be sent for transcription or returned for verification. For Mount Pleasant Practice the software has improved productivity to the point where the team has credited it with enabling them to spend more time with patients.
To further improve voice‑to‑text efficiency, Voice Technologies supplied SpeechMike Premium Touch Dictation Microphones from Philips. These best‑in‑class handheld digital microphones have features specifically designed for the healthcare sector such as a free floating, decoupled microphone for precise recording, antimicrobial housing and buttons and a trackball for integrated mouse function.
The Voice Technologies project team installed the hardware and software, provided full training and they also provide ongoing support to ensure the system continues to run smoothly.
99%
typical accuracy of Dragon Medical One
3x
faster than typing (minimum)
EMIS
GPs dictate directly into the EPR
For Mount Pleasant Practice the software has improved productivity to the point where the team has credited it with enabling them to spend more time with patients.
About Voice Technologies
Voice Technologies is an award‑winning, employee‑owned software solution provider serving the UK market. It helps organisations to reduce the time and cost of producing correspondence by using information and mobile workflow, speech recognition and digital dictation applications.