Proven Methods for Improving Medical Dictation
Medical dictation is a critical component of any patient’s electronic medical record (EMR). Without it, a patient’s condition might not be properly notated for the next medical professional who attends to them. However, medical dictation is also time consuming, especially if you have a lot of errors that need to be corrected. Using a quality speech recognition software designed specifically for medical dictation, such as Dragon Medical One, which offers a free seven-day trial, is the best way to improve medical dictation so that you have fewer errors to correct. Here are two others.
Work On Communication Skills
Younger generations are growing up talking to their devices and having their speech converted into text. They know the key words they need to say to have their message correctly communicated to the receiving party. Older generations don’t have these skills and have to actively work to improve their communication skills to accurately dictate their words. But, medical professionals have additional challenges as well.
Medical professionals have to organize their thoughts to tell a patient’s story in a cohesive, fluent manner. Otherwise, their thoughts translate into disjointed sentences and words during the transcription process. While some people can simply start talking and their words flow out of them in a seemingly perfect sequence that requires no editing at all, others have more difficulty with this. Maybe they feel awkward talking to themselves into a microphone or they easily lose their train of thought.
As with most things, medical dictation requires practice and not all professionals can do it without notes. There is no shame in writing down the sequence you want to follow when you’re dictating, along with some keywords to keep you on track. Nobody cares if you’re using notes and in fact would probably prefer you do so if you struggle with dictation.
Audio Quality
Even the best dictation software can’t help you if you don’t have decent audio quality. The accuracy of your dictation depends on being heard correctly, whether by software or a transcriptionist and if your audio is preventing that, dictation will be harder than it should be. There are two main factors that can impact audio quality: technology and functionality.
The device you choose for dictation is critical because you need it to have a high-quality microphone that can pick up all your words. You also want it to be mobile so you can dictate from multiple locations (perhaps on your way to another patient’s room). You may also want a desktop microphone that keeps your hands free while you dictate so you can make corrections as you go.
Internet speed and connection are also important because if you’re using an online application to dictate, you don’t want it to cut out or disconnect altogether. This can cause gaps between your words, leading to potential medical mistakes.
Functional considerations include having a silent area to record in (also good for HIPAA regulations), training yourself to speak clearly if you have an accent (or choosing software that takes accents into consideration), and keeping your volume at a consistent level to avoid dropping words at the end of sentences. For the most part, you can control these, but having high quality equipment also helps.
Conclusion
While the speech recognition software you use for medical dictation is the most important factor in improving your medical dictation, there are other considerations to make as well. Being intentional about enhancing your communication skills and the equipment your purchase can help make this arduous task much easier.
