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cksla

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cksla

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Friday, 03/30/2001 5:36:05 PM

Friday, March 30, 2001 5:36:05 PM

Post# of 93814
Dictation goes digital
Transcribers of all fields leave two-wheel tapes in the dust
Sarah L. Ferguson Business First Correspondent
You may think of dictating and transcribing as office practices from the past, but those methods of recording information still are used by professionals today. Only now, digital technology has allowed the dictator freedom from the tape recorder, and the transcriptionist is more likely to work at home than in an office.

Just as digital recording has revamped current dictating and transcribing systems, speech recognition looms on the horizon as another innovation with the power to completely change the way things are done today.

Documenting health care information
"A modern dictation system is a voice-processing system, or a sophisticated database management system," said Walter Bradley, regional health care sales manager for Lanier Worldwide Inc. at its district office in Louisville. Lanier is an Atlanta-based sales and service firm offering digital dictation systems, printers, copiers and related services.

The major market for dictation systems is the health care field, said Bradley, because doctors see hundreds of patients a day and don't have the time to sit and write notes on every case, so they dictate the information.

Bill Vessels, owner of Total Office Products & Service, said dictation systems are used by legal and insurance professionals as well.

Standard minicassette recorders can be used by workers in factories who want to dictate what was accomplished on various shifts, Vessels said.

The recorders range in price from $185 to $369 for a portable analog machine, he said.

Although tape-based systems are still in use, "digital systems rule the day because of the ease of use, the ability to quickly find and edit work, and the clarity of dictation," Bradley said.

With digital systems, the recorded voice is stored on a hard disk, he said. That allows random access of material, which also can be prioritized and routed using different methods.

Doctors working in a hospital with a digital dictation system can use small input instruments or even telephones to access and dictate into the system.

A transcriptionist then can retrieve the voice document, type it up and enter it into the system, where it can be stored, faxed, or routed to different areas of the hospital.

Those types of systems can cost upwards of $60,000, said Bradley, adding that some complex, customized systems might cost as much as $1 million.

As simple as talking on the phone
Lanier offers a digital dictation system called Cquence for medical document management. Prices start at $100,000, said Bradley.

Dictation can be done on a mobile, hand-held unit. When finished, the unit is placed in a docking station, or base, and the voice files are downloaded to a personal computer, which is linked to the business' computer network for transcription.

Transcription can take place two ways: the file can be transcribed by someone listening to the voice file, or it can be sent through a speech-recognition engine housed in another computer and then edited by a transcriptionist, which is a quicker process.

Dolbey and Co., a Cincinnati-based dictation and document-management company, offers a digital system called DVI VoicePower 2000 through its Louisville location on Plantside Drive.

The Louisville office only handles Sony and Racal products, said Tammy Seithel, a company trainer for digital voice dictation. Dolbey's Cincinnati office handles sales and service of the medical dictation equipment.

The DVI VoicePower 2000 system's price starts at $4,000, depending on the size of the system. It operates in a Microsoft Windows environment and also allows dictation from a phone, direct-wired station or portable recorder.

Dictation is recorded onto a computer hard drive, where the voice is digitized. "You can do things with voice on a computer that you couldn't do with tapes," said Seithel, who is based in Cincinnati.

Dolbey also offers a palm-sized portable dictation instrument called the MobileMD, a new product that allows physicians to dictate files while on the move.

MobileMD can even store information, such as patient schedules and room locations. Pricing details were not finalized as of a July interview. Information also can be e-mailed from the MobileMD, said Seithel.

WinScribe, which starts at $1,999, is the digital dictation system available from Total Office Products & Service in Louisville.

It also uses the familiar Windows toolbars and dictation can be done from any touch-tone or mobile phone. WinScribe also can be integrated into an office by using the existing PC network and telephone setup. A system with 24 ports, for example, might cost as much as $21,795, said Vessels.

Working from home is one possible benefit
Baptist Hospital East and Jewish Hospital both use digital dictation systems, according to Lori Corrao, health care specialist for Lanier.

Baptist has a system with 32 ports, and Jewish has 64 ports, she said. That means that 32 or 64 people can be working in the system at the same time.

To use the system, a doctor in the hospital can go to a station after seeing a patient, lift the handset, enter his or her five-digit Kentucky medical license number, key in the patient's medical record number and start dictating. The system also can be accessed from any touch-tone phone.

Transcriptionists also have an identification number to access the system, and they can work from home or at an office in the hospital. About half of Baptist's transcriptionists work at home, said Corrao, and Jewish has all of its transcribers working from home offices.

Linda Anderson, director of health information for Jewish Hospital, said transcriptionists train at the hospital, then work at home. "Being able to have people work at home has been a big boost for us," Anderson said. "It has enabled us to recruit and retain good transcriptionists."

A speed-typing system, called PRD Plus, is one of Anderson's favorite innovations. With PRD Plus, the dictation equipment is programmed to expand abbreviations as they are entered by transcriptionists.

"We've been able to increase our productivity through software enhancements," Anderson said.

Speech-recognition tools not widely used
Anderson also said that Jewish is "actively researching voice-recognition systems."

Their implementation could result in cost savings, Anderson said, because the number of transcriptionists would be reduced.

Voice recognition would be tried in specialty areas first, she said, such as the emergency or pathology departments.

General practitioners see so many different patients and so many different conditions, it would be hard for them to use voice-recognition systems, said Corrao. But doctors in emergency or radiology departments may be able to use the technology because they use a more limited vocabulary.

"Speech recognition will turn transcriptionists into editors," Corrao said, but won't entirely eliminate transcription. Bradley called speech recognition "an emerging technology" with an ultimate goal of reducing costs.

Several of those contacted for this report said the industry generally sees speech recognition as new technology that still needs to have kinks worked out.

For now, most said, a transcriptionist always will be necessary for editing a document dictated by a doctor because speech recognition is not flawless.

Vessels calls voice recognition "voice wreck ignition" to demonstrate the faults inherent in the system.

He noted that "with voice recognition, you can dictate, but it's going to require a high level of editing. Is this what people really want?" http://louisville.bcentral.com/louisville/stories/2000/09/11/focus3.html



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