Philips SpeechMagic boosts transcription productivity in Aiken Regional Medical Center

AIKEN, SC - Aiken Regional Medical Center in Aiken, S.C. significantly increased the productivity of report transcription by implementing the Philips speech recognition software SpeechMagic, integrated into the WinScribe digital dictation system.

 

Howard Sanford, Aiken radiology department manager, summarizes the results: "Creating radiology reports has developed from a complex process to an almost fully automated workflow with a minimum of human interaction. Transcription productivity has increased by 150%. Reports are available within 1.5 hours compared to 48 hours before. Many sources of mistakes have been eliminated and the patient service has improved."

 

Reducing transcription backlogs

 

Aiken Regional Medical Center is a 225-bed acute care facility. Like many healthcare facilities, Aiken was looking for a solution to gain control of its Radiology transcription backlog and reduce operating costs. Therefore Aiken implemented a digital dictation system with integrated speech recognition.

 

Aiken staff use WinScribe Internet Author with the SpeechMike® and a barcode scanner to dictate reports. Once a report is dictated and recorded, the audio file is immediately routed to the SpeechMagic server for conversion from speech to text.  The transcriptionists receive both the audio file and the recognized text within minutes of dictation. They then correct recognition errors and finalize the report. Subsequently the completed report is automatically merged into the Radiology Management System (RMS) and filed in the corresponding patient record.

 

High reporting efficiency

 

"I transcribe 60 jobs in one hour compared to 20 jobs before SpeechMagic was installed," says Cynthia Cook, Head Transcriptionist at Aiken Regional Medical Center. "Difficult medical terminology now appears directly on screen and I no longer have to type the entire report, but only correct the recognized text. This is much faster."

 

Reports are available to physicians on average, 90 minutes after the radiologist dictates the report. "By automating most of the manual processes, we have eliminated costly and inefficient human error. The reports are available in our RMS sooner and without mistakes", says Sanford.

 

Asked about future plans, Sanford says: "We now have a fully integrated solution that we intend to expand to other departments; SpeechMagic and WinScribe will scale with our future needs. This gives us control of our transcription services and our costs, which is very important to us."

 

In addition to the operational benefits, the patient service has improved. Treatment can start shortly after examination, because long waiting times have been eliminated. "Our patients are getting better care, because we are more efficient. At the end of the day, this is how we measure our success. And we can say, we are extremely pleased with the results," says Howard.