Powerscribe
The PowerScribe Speech Recognition system is the solution that COMRAD recommend and integrate into the COMRAD RIS.
PowerScribe is a product from Nuance. Nuance also owns other Speech Recognition products including Dragon Naturally Speaking and what was Philips Speech Magic. There are few if any other Speech Recognition options available in the market today other than products offered by Nuance. PowerScribe is positioned as Nuance’s Radiology Speech Recognition product. Its language models and vocabulary have been fine tuned to provide the best performance in a radiology reporting environment.
We have implemented this interface directly to PowerScribe rather than using intermediate products or HL7 technologies. This direct interface provides much greater control over how the applications work together and allows us to provide a better user “experience” plus improved performance and reliability. Our interface works in such a way that during reporting you interact mainly with COMRAD up until the point where you press the “Transcribe” button on the PowerMic. At that point the PowerScribe screen comes to the fore, the recognised speech is translated to text and is displayed on the screen, and then the final proofread/edit is done in the PowerScribe window.
Typically once the report is complete the “Sign” button is pressed, it is marked as verified in COMRAD and passed to the COMRAD Distribution Server for delivery. Alternative work-flows exist to either save the report and have the typist check it and/or for it to come back for a final check as part of the normal COMRAD verification step.
COMRAD are the only vendor who have a service agreement with Nuance this means we can implement, train and support this product locally. Our costs for software and installing the system are significantly cheaper than any other distributor or company providing a high end speech solution.
Integration with the COMRAD system is technically sound, this is controlled through an API rather than convoluted HL7 connections. Radiologists only need to enter their Comrad credentials which will effectively launch PowerScribe for them. PowerScribe is then controlled by the movements made in COMRAD making the experience quite seamless
Some of the specific benefits of operating PowerScribe integrated with COMRAD are:
- The work-flow is highly efficient for "standard normal" reports. These are reports that can be completed with a voice macro (e.g. "normal chest"), verified and distributed immediately (literally within seconds).
- The work-flow for template reports is also highly efficient. These are reports such as Pregnancy Ultrasounds where the bulk of the report is standard text but certain measurements and key words (normal / abnormal) are entered as appropriate each time. In this case the radiologist just loads the template via voice macro and then dictates each of the data elements (such as a measurement) and presses the “next field” button. Again these reports can be finished as quickly as the radiologist can talk. The radiologist verifies/signs and they are distributed immediately.
- Complex reports are also well suited to Voice Recognition. Due to the length of these types of report, radiologists using this system say that because they can see the text as they report (you can press the “Transcribe” button at any time), it helps them by not having to remember what they have said previously (and therefore they don’t have to replay the "tape" to hear it again to remind themselves). According to the radiologists using the system, this is a major benefit which has made reporting long reports much less complex and less tiring. This is quite a fundamental change and benefit in how long, complex reports are done.
- Another benefit the radiologists mention is that they like to be the last one to see and format the report before it goes out.
- Transcription costs can be reduced dramatically by reducing the number of typists required. The capital cost of the system can be recouped very quickly and then financial gains are accrued from there on.
- Another key benefit is that the report turnaround time is dramatically reduced. Where the radiologist verifies / signs the report as soon as they have dictated it, the complete transcription and verification steps are removed from the process thereby reducing the time to distribution dramatically. This can provide a major service delivery advantage over your competitors.
|
