Success story—Dragon Medical One increases productivity and time spent with patients

Flexible, fast, accurate

Learn how Dragon Medical One accurately captures ophthalmological terms for Eye Surgery Associates, which allows them to quickly and easily dictate documents from any of their four clinics or their home‑office.

Background

Melbourne‑based Eye Surgery Associates is a well‑established ophthalmological practice that delivers a range of sub‑specialist services to patients across its four clinics. The practice’s 18 highly‑qualified and experienced ophthalmologists provide medical and surgical eye services in cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, medical and surgical retina, oculoplastic, refractive surgery, clinical electrodiagnostics and inflammatory eye diseases. Highly focused on the well‑being of their patients, the clinicians were keen to spend less time tied to a desk drafting letters and more time with their patients.

In particular, the clinicians were keen to implement software that would accurately capture ophthalmological terms when creating patient notes and letters, and which would also allow them to easily dictate documents from any of their four clinics or their home‑office. Some of the clinicians had been using various versions of speech recognition software including Nuance’s Dragon. As the mix of software did not consist of a medically dedicated speech recognition solution, it required that the clinicians continuously train the software so that it recognised ophthalmological terms to ensure accuracy which caused constant frustration, while wasting precious time.

Further, the software could only be accessed from dedicated computers, in dedicated rooms across all four sites. This meant that the clinicians had to dictate their documents from their consulting room, slowing the flow of timely documentation and causing a drag on their own productivity levels as well as the workflow efficiency of the communications team.

“Medical reports and letters are continuously proofed by our communications team for accurate spelling and formatting before they are given to a patient, released to the referring doctor and filed into our Electronic Management Records (EMR) system, so any improvement in creating timely documents and capturing the correct spelling of medical terms would make the entire process far more efficient.”

For the communications team, the drag on workflow efficiency was further compounded by the fact that the clinicians used a range of different tools to create their documents. Apart from the various versions of speech recognition software, some doctors preferred to manually write their letters while others opted for Dictaphones. The various tools slowed the processing pace as the communications team was required to navigate between them.

Finding Dragon Medical One

Determined to see if they could do better, one of the clinicians came across Nuance Dragon Medical One (DMO) while searching for options online. DMO is a secure, cloud‑based speech platform used by clinicians around the world to help boost their efficiency and productivity. It delivers fast and accurate dictation and streamlines documentation processes by allowing clinicians to create and edit notes and documents directly into EMR systems and other applications by simply using their voice. DMO is also compatible across solutions, platforms and devices, meaning that clinicians can use the software from anywhere, at any time.

To investigate DMO further, Eye Surgery Associates partnered with VoiceX Communications who are specialists in providing speech recognition and dictation solutions. The clinicians decided to trial the software and after some basic one‑on‑one training with VoiceX, two of the doctors tested DMO’s capability and responsiveness over 14 days and were impressed. With the help of the clinic’s IT service provider, VoiceX Communications quickly and easily integrated the software with their existing computers, EMR system and dictation devices, providing support if needed, as the doctors began to use DMO.

Improving productivity

“DMO has a dedicated and comprehensive medical dictionary which means that as soon as the doctor mentions a medical term, the software correctly transcribes the word and the doctor does not have to waste time training the software or checking to see if the word has been spelt accurately or making corrections. This lets our clinicians dictate medical reports, letters and other documents faster and with greater accuracy.

“The productivity of the communications team has also improved because it now receives documents to proof that have far fewer errors so they can get through the work quicker and the time saved is spent on other tasks,” explained Andrea.

The processing of documents has also been further streamlined thanks to DMO. “We now have eight of our doctors all using the same DMO software, which means our communications team spends less time switching between different transcription tools. Also, the software updates automatically, so our doctors are always on the same page and have a consistent user experience. As more of our doctors take up DMO, we hope to further optimise our processes,” she said.