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Dictation for doctors is becoming labor-intensive and expensive because of outdated software and complicated processes. Most healthcare facilities are particularly looking for new and updated medical dictation software and medical transcription software that will help not only the administration but also help doctors be more productive. Advances in speech recognition capabilities seem to mean that both healthcare facilities and doctors can become more productive and save medical dictation and medical transcription costs. But this means that the job of the medical transcriptionist is changing significantly. Instead of a raw audio file, they start with the text file, and their role is more like being an editor. They are now required to go through the already produced document and make sure the report is accurate, and correct any mistakes that the speech recognizer mistranslated. Since the first step is already taken care of at the source, the process of turning around a transcription from doctor to transcriptionist is shortened substantially. Speech recognition proponents argue that this cuts significant costs because transcriptionists are so much more productive, able to turn around a far greater number of transcripts in a day. Plus, doctors aren't asked to change the way they currently operate. However, some professionals want to remove the transcriptionist step entirely. It's called the Once and Done (OAD) model. In the OAD model, a doctor is able to both dictate and edit as she goes. She doesn't send the completed text file to a transcriptionist--she simply does a once-over, finalizes the note, and then delivers it to the EMR system. This eliminates both turnaround time and administrative overhead. OAD fans say that while a healthcare facility needs to lay out the money for the technology it takes to implement an OAD system, the setup fees are still far less than the current reoccurring cost of dictation and transcription. But the problem with this model is that not only are doctors called upon to change their workflow, they are also suddenly the only ones responsible for the final accuracy of the patient record. Plus, the time required to add editing dictation to patient visit routines can be substantial. The final argument is that a physician’s time is worth a significant amount—are healthcare facilities factoring in the average hourly rate of that extra time as it adds up? The cost of the OAD model might not add up.
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medical dictation software, medical transcription software, medical dictation,
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