Lyn Whitfield reports.

There is something wonderfully space-age about speech recognition. Long before most people had ever seen a computer, they had seen the space explorers of 1960s TV talking to one.

Unfortunately, says Nick van Terheyden, chief medical officer, Philips Speech Recogniton Systems, it is also a technology that has “over-promised and under-delivered for a number of years.”

Nuance

Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions from Nuance is the world's leading provider of speech recognition, dictation, and transcription systems and services that simplify and enhance the production and management of electronic patient documentation.

Today, more than 4,000 hospitals, clinics, and group practices, and over 400,000 healthcare providers, use Dragon NaturallySpeaking powered speech recognition from Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions, to transform the high cost of medical reporting to a low cost high-quality process, for increased doctor productivity and better care, through easier, more immediate access to electronic patient information.

E-mail: simon.howard@nuance.com
Tel: 07789 937823 (Simon Howard)
Web: http://www.nuance.co.uk/dictaphone/

Olympus Digital Dictation Solutions

Digital dictation is the ideal solution for busy professionals who need to work remotely from the office. Whether you need to dictate reports, letters, documents or notes, Olympus can offer a suitable business tool.

Combining unlimited flexibility with independence, the Olympus range of digital voice recorders have been designed to deliver stylish simplicity for use by the busy professional. All devices are easy to use, effective and reliable; ranging from simple note takers to full Pro-Line office solutions.

There are a number of specialist Olympus Dictation Centres across the UK who are able to provide comprehensive training, installation and support for the whole range of Olympus voice products. Further details can be found on our website www.olympusproline.co.uk

E-mail: ryan@olympus.uk.com
Tel: 020 7250 2772 (Ryan Braddock)
Web: www.olympusproline.co.uk/testdrive

Typing issues solved by the UK’s Number 1 provider

SRC have helped over 100 Trusts achieve cost savings and productivity improvements through the deployment of Speech Recognition and Digital Dictation solutions. Our experience and knowledge has established us as the UK's No. 1 provider of document creation technologies.

SRC are the exclusive European WinScribe Platinum Partner and holder of several Dragon Partner Awards, recognising the high quality of our speech recognition solutions. We combine these best-of-breed technologies, with award-winning services, to deliver solutions that are proven to dramatically save time and money.  Our solutions improve team working and help NHS Trusts meet the DoH 18 week delivery programme.

Most recently SRC delivered Speech Recognition to Homerton and in two weeks document backlogs were cleared and further backlogs have been avoided.

E-mail: carls@src.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7471 0100 (Carl Sargent)
Web: www.src.co.uk/industries/Healthcare.html

In search of the complete solution?

Speech Recognition wins can be big – but can be much bigger when coupled with a clinical correspondence management system.

Medisec Software provides the means to plan, organise, monitor and control the process of producing clinical correspondence. Interfaced with the hospital PAS, Medisec applications are used to control the content, presentation, storage and delivery of correspondence.

This is a highly automated and complete process, excepting that at the point where a Medical Secretary would be typing from dictation to MSWord the clinician could be using Speech Recognition to generate the text. Crucially that is all they would need to do to enhance the speech recognition usage into a strategic option. Contact Medisec Software for all the options for improving clinical correspondence

Email: Kevin.buckley@medisecsoftware.co.uk
Tel: 07976 747358 (Kevin Buckley)
Web: www.medisecsoftware.co.uk

Department or hospital-wide: proven solutions from G2 Speech

The Northumbria NHS Trust and Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust are only two of the many UK sites currently benefiting from the use of the G2 Speech digital dictation and speech recognition system.

G2 Speech will help you improve patient care and save you time on report creation. We offer integrated digital dictation and speech recognition solutions for the medical profession. Our solutions are proven on departments as well as hospital wide.

To find out exactly how our solutions, which are powered by SpeechMagic, can benefit you, visit our website www.g2speech.co.uk or call us on 020 8989 7330 to arrange a comprehensive demonstration.

Email: r.prins@g2speech.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8989 7330 (Ryan Prins)
Web: www.g2speech.co.uk

Maximum integration flexibility: speech recognition solutions from Soliton IT

Soliton IT use Philips SpeechMagic to provide integrated speech recognition and digital dictation solutions for healthcare organisations. Soliton IT speech processing systems include Workflow Management software and the company fully integrate their solutions with other hospital systems.

Soliton IT can also speech enable legacy systems with their Speech Console package which provides speech to text at the cursor position. Soliton IT use HL7 and other bespoke technology to integrate with RIS, PACS, PAS, EPR and other healthcare systems. Speech Processing solutions are available from Soliton IT for: Agfa, Carestream / Kodak, eFilm, iSoft, HSS, Merge, Meditech, Misys, Philips Medical Systems, Sectra, Siemens Medical Systems, SystmOne.

Email: bob.watson@solitonit.com
Tel: +44 (0) 208 123 7000 (Bob Watson)
Web: www.solitonit.com

From text to data: hospitals have the say

Recognizing the potential of speech recognition to turn spoken information into clinical data, hospitals embrace SpeechMagic as a tool to improve patient care. Philips has now released new case studies from around the world, showing how industrial grade speech recognition can bring benefits beyond efficiency gains and cost savings. Highlights include reports from NHS Northumbria, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and hospitals in Belgium and Norway. A story from Australia shows how a paediatric hospital uses SpeechMagic to streamline documentation and get its little patients back to the playgrounds faster. New video reports are also available on the Philips website.

Email: info.speech@philips.com
Tel: +44 (0)7789 650 190 (Gary R. Williams)
Web: www.philips.com/speechrecognition