NHS Trust Hospitals in England Deploy Nuance's Dragon Medical One

Hospitals in Yorkshire, England, are turning to Nuance's Dragon Medical One voice technology to reduce repetitive tasks surrounding the recording, checking, and dispatch of patients' clinical notes and letters.

The Health Informatics Service (THIS) has introduced the technology to benefit Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax, along with community outreach services.

In one six-month period, staff inputted more than 40,000 minutes of text using the voice recognition technology. THIS estimates the new system has saved approximately 150,000 minutes that would previously been required to type up the information.

"The outcomes include efficient, leaner, and more consistent clinical record keeping and improved professional satisfaction, with staff spending more time in caring for patients," said Luke Stockdale, director of digital transformation at THIS, in a statement.

Using Nuance Dragon Medical One, each clinician reads through the relevant script displayed on-screen and uses voice commands, known as AutoTexts, to add specific details, such as the individual patient’s name and medical details, at highlighted brackets tailored to the patient within the text.

"The need for quick, quality clinical documentation has never been more important. Those on the front line—hospital doctors, GPs, nurses, and other healthcare professionals—are working tirelessly to provide essential services and lifesaving treatments," said Simon Wallace, chief clinical information officer at Nuance, in a statement. "With so much strain on the NHS's resources, it can feel as if paperwork is yet another heavy and time-intensive burden for clinical professionals. Therefore, many hospitals are turning to our speech recognition technologies. Not only do these technologies save time, they also enable clinical professionals to focus on what really matters—their patients."