Voice recognition and medical transcription:
Medical transcriptionists have had the wonderful job of transcribing the doctor’s dictated patient notes. Some dictations are very easy to understand and the doctors speak very clearly. However, there are doctors that can make a medical transcriptionist job challenging at times. This is because some of the doctors will not dictate in a quiet room or will be eating or even mumbling when dictating. Therefore; when an MT listens to the dictation they hear the doctor as well as back ground noises. Most MTs understand that this is just part of the job and learn to listen closely for the information that is dictated by the doctor.
However, voice recognition software is not going to understand certain words or sentences if there is a lot of background noise of patients or co-workers talking. It also will not understand the words if the doctor is mumbling or has a strong accent.
This will create a lot of mistakes in the transcribed medical reports. Something that the medical profession cannot have! Accuracy in patient medical reports is a MUST!
It is for this reason that you will not see voice recognition or better known as SRT (Speech Recognition Technology) take the place of the medical transcriptionist.
There are some doctors that do use the SRT systems. However, for those that do use the SRT system they also use MTs to review and edit the reports that the software created. Most times the voice recognition will not pick up medical terms correctly and will output the wrong text into the document.
This requires a qualified MT to listen to the medical dictation while reviewing the transcribed report for any errors. Medical records have to be in compliance with a strict set of rules. They have to be as close to 100% accurate as possible. Most doctors require no less than 98% accuracy from their MTs. This means that a report created by the SRT / voice recognition software would have to be 98% accurate or better. When typing a simple letter, this is possible. However, when dictating medical reports that have long medical words it is very rare to get a report that is as accurate as the standards require.
Medical transcriptionist will be needed for a very long time! Their career job might change some as technology changes, yet that is with almost any career. There was a time when MTs listened to cassette tapes and transcribed on a type writer. Now, they listen to digital dictation audio files and transcribe by typing on a computer keyboard and using a digital foot pedal to fast forward, rewind and play the files. Some MTs even do medical transcription editing better known as a “Medical Transcription Editor”. This is when they do what we mentioned above; listen to the digital audio dictations and review /edit the report that the SRT has created.
It is very important that you get the proper training to work in the medical transcription career field. This is because of the strict rules that require medical reports to be as accurate as possible. In conclusion: Voice recognition is a wonderful thing; but it will not replace medical transcription for a long time if ever. It will make a nice addition for a lot of MTs because they can get jobs as medical transcription editors.
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