EHI round-up: digital dictation

This special edition of E-Health Insider’s industry round-up focuses on digital dictation. It covers innovative and recent deployments to NHS trusts by most of the leading players in a market that really seems to be opening up.

Rotherham begins trust wide digital dictation

The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust has started a full roll out of the NOMAD digital dictation software and outsource transcription from Softech Global.

The trust trialled the solution four years ago and then integrated it into its McKesson patient administration system.

The system was put live in rheumatology, orthopaedics and rheumatology, where secretaries managed to clear shelves of patients’ notes within 48 hours.

The trust then rolled-out to three further areas before signing a deal with Softech under the Yorkshire and Humber commercial procurement collaborative framework contract for a trust wide roll-out.

The software allows all completed transcriptions at the trust to be automatically stored in the NOMAD database for quick and easy retrieval at anytime.

Craig Banks, business and service manger said: “The main benefit is gained from the automated workflow and database storage from which documents can easily and quickly be retrieved.

"We have just integrated to Sunquest ICE to allow electronic transfer of letters to GPs which will save the trust a considerable amount of money.

“We are now looking at how NOMAD can support us with our Meditech EPR solution to further automate our reporting process and identify patients who have attended clinics but not received letters.”

Cerner hospital integrates digital dictation

Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust has integrated a digital dictation solution from Dictate IT into its Cerner Millennium electronic patient record system.

The trust went live with the digital dictation system in February 2008 and has now rolled it out across general surgery, paediatrics, cardiology and 22 other specialities.

Mark Miller, managing director of Dictate IT, said: “Barnet and Chase Farm were implicit in their specification for a provider that could directly integrate with the Cerner architecture their EPRs relied on.

“We had previously worked closely with Newham University Hospital NHS Trust, which is the only trust in the UK to have a direct development partnership with Cerner. We knew as a consequence that our software could integrate with Barnet and Chase Farm’s platform.”

The trust says it has benefited from digital files that can be transferred directly into the EPR, there is no longer any delay as a result of mislaid tapes and virtually real time transcription is possible.

Doncaster combines products for digital dictation

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has implemented a fully integrated digital dictation solution from Medisec and TalkingPoint.

The trust approached both companies to see whether they could work together to implement their stand-alone products to create a single improved integrated system.

The result allows a button to be clicked in a Medisec clinic list to automatically generate a digital recording for the relevant patient.

Patient details are stored with the recording and the recording appears in the secretarial inbox. The secretaries can either select a patient in a Medisec list to open the recording with the appropriate letter, or scan a list of outstanding letters using the patient details.

After a trial period the trust has now ordered equipment to support more than 350 authors and 200 transcription stations for a roll out in the coming weeks.

Oncology Centre implements G2 Speech

One of the largest oncology centres in the UK, Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff, is implementing MediSpeech digital dictation from G2 Speech.

The centre said it considered four different digital dictation solutions during its tendering process, but chose the winning system on cost, quality, past experience and integration with its own system.

Alison Mackie, project manager at Velindre, said: “MediSpeech does everything we want, plus it has the added benefit of a comprehensive and extensive reporting system.

“Velindre Cancer Centre’s commitment to cancer care can only be enhanced by using this modern, flexible technology.”

The centre, which provides cancer services to more than 1.5m people in South East Wales, said that it will consider speech recognition following the digital dictation roll-out in May.

Mid Cheshire deploys WinScribe to meet targets

SRC is implementing its WinScribe digital dictation system to more than 400 users across Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to enable it to meet discharge letter targets.

The system enables authors to document patient references using bar-coding technology which is then attached to the dictation. This enables templates to be pre-populated with information from the PAS before transcription.

Diane Nolder, senior IT projects manager at the trust, said: “Of particular benefit was SRC’s proven integrated speech recognition capability and the ease with which the solution can be linked to our PAS system.

“It will be integrated into our patient management and electronic document transfer systems to enable us to meet DH and CEPCT targets for discharge and outpatient clinic letters.”

The trust has already gone live with the solution across ear, nose and throat, general surgery and urology departments where it has reported improved typing turnaround times for urgent dictations despite increased workloads.

Golden Jubilee continues to reduce waiting times

The Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Scotland has purchased WinScribe and Voice Technologies’ WinVoicePro to further reduce waiting times for patients.

The hospital, which is Scotland’s flagship hospital for reducing patient waiting times, negotiated the contract under the National Framework for Scotland for Digital Dictation and Speech Recognition.

William Edwards, head of E-Health at the hospital, said: “With us being part of the NHS National Waiting Times Centre, we have a strong commitment to ensuring all internal procedures are performed as efficiently as possible to make sure that patients receive correspondence quickly.

"The new digital dictation system will allow administrative staff to mange high volumes of medical correspondence more efficiently by automatically populating letters with patient information."

Edwards added: “We will be using this system to streamline the process for dictation, transcribing and workflow management.

"It will improve access to transcribed letters and information for all those involved in patient care and reduces the time between dictation, transcription, verification and sending of correspondence to GPs, referring hospitals and patients.”