Freshly Squeezed…

…from the ConText blender. SpeechMagic is now served in the following flavours:

• Consultations – US English
• Emergency Medicine – US English

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The Ten Commandments of Professional Speech Recognition

From Stone to RFP…

I decided to turn my original Ten Commandments of Speech Recognition document into a more comprehensive list of the critical elements to consider before delving into the RFP writing process. Why? Because I believe that only a well documented Request for Proposal that reflects the operational, technology and legal issues at stake will provide the framework for the expected productivity and workflow improvements – your own organization’s Holy Grail.

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Re: Smells like Team Spirit

Answer to yesterday’s question:

They did.

They didn’t.

Smells like Team Spirit…

No doubt Montreal physicians have experienced more productive days. Well, Montrealers in general. For now, our hearts are ringing busy in the middle of the Bell Centre arena until the crucial question finds its one-way answer: Who will dictate the rules tonight?

Philips Launches Professional Services Portfolio

Philips Speech Recognition Systems announced yesterday the launch of a comprehensive service portfolio for their integration partners worldwide, organized around four pillars:

1. Integration. Philips helps define and integrate the optimal set of SpeechMagic features; this includes input channels and the ability to deploy in Citrix Access infrastructures or on Windows Terminal Servers.

2. Deployment. Deployment services prepare for fast system roll-out with the aim of facilitating user acceptance and minimizing downtime during implementation and set-up.

3. Support. Support services provide the knowledge and tools for optimal system maintenance and fast resolution of technical issues, including training and workshops as well as standby and third-line support.

4. Productivity. Productivity services round up the service package, as Philips experts analyze end users’ working methods, evaluate results and user satisfaction, and provide recommendations to optimize workflows and processes.

Marcel Wassink, CEO of Philips Speech Recognition Systems, comments:

Philips has acquired a unique wealth of knowledge and proficiency while working with the world’s largest healthcare speech recognition sites which stretch across city-, region- and even country-wide health systems. The service offering now enables our SpeechMagic partners to apply this knowledge and experience directly to their IT applications. Our technicians, developers and consultants will help them design optimal solutions that boost productivity in hospitals and provide physicians with better information.”

> Read press release

Speech Recognition Goes South

The borders of the professional speech recognition community are expanding further South with a new member as of today:

Drs Conidaris and Partners, a private radiology group located at the Glynnwood Hospital premises in Benoni, South Africa, have completed the rollout of a Crescendo/SpeechMagic speech recognition system. After evaluating different technologies, the partners chose SpeechMagic for its wealth of built-in Radiology vocabulary and Crescendo’s unique voice streaming technology, which allows for immediate speech processing; a key feature for mission-critical environments” explains Kevin McEvoy, Managing Director, Datafer.

With the Crescendo/SpeechMagic technology, the practice was able to deliver on its initial objectives: speed up report production and reduce transcription costs. With the secretaries’ newfound ability to edit medical reports as opposed to typing them in full, fewer resources are required to process the same volume of reports. The first medical report dictated achieved over 75% accuracy and this rate is continually improving as the system learns.

“Skilled medical typists are extremely hard to find in the region, and a growing number of South African healthcare facilities welcome speech recognition technology as a reliable, cost-efficient way to address this issue. The technology has clearly matured significantly over the past few years and is delivering the expected results,” explain the radiologists at the practice.

Digital mobile recorders (Philips 9600) are used by physicians to dictate either directly from the practice or on the move. Every time the device is docked and a network connection is established, DigiService-IP automatically and securely streams completed voice files to the central server in real-time. The Secretary then uses DigiPlayer-IP, the Microsoft Word based playback and transcription application from Crescendo, to correct the document.

“South African hospitals and clinics are increasingly aware of the importance of digital technology to modernize both their practice and care delivery, and they are very selective in their purchasing process, with good reason” explains Costa Mandilaras, President, Crescendo Systems Corp. “This is why we chose a distributor, Datafer, with outstanding support services to properly deliver the Crescendo 18-year field expertise to South African customers. I believe that Drs Conidaris and Partners is the first of many more South African healthcare installations to come,” concludes Mandilaras.

Integration, Integration, Integration

In a freshly inked article from Health Imaging & IT, healthcare IT executives and vendors unveil their respective visions and roadmaps for speech recognition. Integration clearly is the main course on the menu. While this is too bad for those vendors who think HL7 is the name of a 1990’s boy band, this article further confirms hospitals’ appetite for structured documentation with a direct impact on patient care.

• Dr. Stephen Rosenthal, M.D. from the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, QC, insists on the importance of interfaces between speech recognition and third-party systems in order to deliver the foundation for evidence-based medicine through searchable, standardized clinical data: “if speech systems aren’t relatively uniform, people will find systems on their own and use them. Then you have a hodgepodge of systems that don’t talk to each other and standardization is lost. We are much better investing in something uniform.”
• According to Terence Matalon, MD, from the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, PA, speech recognition & PACS integration is a must have for Radiologists since it eliminates the need to re-enter patient information or “have two applications open to attain the same goal”. Matalon even pushes the point further by making integration expertise a competitive differentiator between vendors: “there are dozens of products that can reliably show you the current exam, prior exam and reports. The differentiating factor is how well they integrate with third parties and how well they reduce amount of work involved in interpreting reports and generating reports.”
• On the vendor side, Klaus Stanglmayr from Philips Speech Recognition Systems explains how “interoperability and the ability to exchange data between systems and countries is becoming more and more critical in Europe. Standardized terminology would prevent the need to have data translated from one language to another.”
• Finally, Chris Spring from MedQuist insists on vendors’ primary mission to “make it easier for the physician to accept the technology.”

Now what’s your vision? Share it on this blog!