New Software Lowers Transcription Costs, Decreases Report Turn-Around Time

A new speech recognition system enables radiologists to sign off on a completed report while viewing the original image; therefore, the need to double check reports returning from transcription is eliminated. As a result, not only is radiologist efficiency boosted, but referring physician satisfaction and patient quality of care are also improved.

Nuance Communications, Inc. (Burlington, MA, USA), a supplier of speech recognition systems, announced that its PowerScribe for Radiology has been rolled out at 10 of the 15 hospital facilities that collectively form the Baptist Memorial Health Care (BMHC; Memphis, TN, USA) network. Since installing PowerScribe for Radiology in February 2008, the network has seen an 81% reduction in radiology report turn-around time (TAT), decreasing TAT from 11.4 hours to 2.2 and far surpassing the original five-hour TAT goal. Transcription costs have also been lowered by nearly US$400,000 to date.

PowerScribe has been invaluable for healthcare organizations, such as BMHC, that have looked to implement a speech-enabled clinical documentation system for radiology without disrupting productivity among providers. BMHC sought a solution that could deliver against its clinical documentation goals to decrease radiology report TAT and transcription costs.

"As with implementing any new technology, we did not want to negatively impact clinician workflow or our report TAT," said Johnny Stanford, administrator for Clinical Services with Baptist Memorial Health Care network. "The PowerScribe for Radiology interface is easy-to-use, presenting all essential information in understandable windows and tabs. Our original goal was that after one year, 50% of radiologists would be able to self-edit their reports. Because the training is so straight forward, physicians were quickly brought up to speed and 99% of the radiologists in our network were able to self-edit using the software right out-of-the-box."

When a patient visits the emergency room, risks can be detected by a radiologist immediately, rather than the following day, which reduces medical errors and delays in treatment caused by slow report turn-around time.

"As with anything, PowerScribe for Radiology presented our team with a new way of doing things and with that came a learning curve. That being said, I would never want to go back to documenting radiology reports with traditional transcription," said Dr. Dexter Witte, a radiologist in the BMHC network. "The biggest benefit we've seen since implementation is radiology reports are created and available faster than before. Speech recognition for reporting is where the healthcare industry is heading and faster report turnaround time paired with the fact that at 5:00 pm my reports are done for the day, and I'm not signing them throughout the night, has me fully on board."

For BMHC, the goal for adoption of PowerScribe for Radiology was to implement a real-time speech recognition solution with self-editing capabilities. The successful deployment of the software resulted in 99% of the radiologists in the network self-editing within one month. The group expects similar results for future implementations. In addition to PowerScribe for Radiology's real-time speech recognition with self-editing capabilities, PowerScribe also supports speech recognition with delegated editing, in which radiologists do not edit their own reports; instead, their speech-recognized draft report is forwarded to a transcriptionist/editor for correcting and formatting. Turn-around time and transcription costs are considerably reduced, as reports no longer have to be transcribed from scratch.

PowerScribe for Radiology is one of many offerings in Nuance's healthcare range of proven, speech-enabled clinical documentation and communication solutions. These include other radiology solutions, RadWhere, RadPort, RadCube, and Veriphy Critical Test Result Management system, as well as eScription on-demand platform for computer aided medical transcription, Dictaphone Enterprise Express on-premise platform for integrated transcription workflow, and speech recognition and Dragon Medical for real-time speech recognition within an electronic medical record (EMR). All of these solutions enable healthcare provider organizations to reduce operating costs, increase reimbursement, and enhance patient care and safety.

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Nuance Communications
Baptist Memorial Health Care