If you consider all the fields of human activities where speech recognition technology might be used, the hospital environment would seem to offer the most beneficial uses. Just think of some of the benefits:
- Reducing cross-infection by using keyboards
- Hands-free operation allowing the physician to minister to the patient
- Reduction in errors in record keeping for patients
- Improved quality of patient care
- Reduced cost
Not surprisingly, it does not seem inappropriate to say that Every hospital will have speech recognition infrastructure.
A big influence on that will be Nuance It is among the world’s most influential software companies with 4.5 billion users – half the world’s population. It specialises in data input and information capture by text or speech – improving communication between man and machine. Following its recent acquisitions Nuance have now embarked on their mission across the European healthcare systems.
The Nuance vision of how speech recognition will be used in five years’ time is that it will change the way health services are delivered in a major way:
In five or ten years, all hospitals will use electronic patient record systems. These will become more structured so we can get statistical information from them easily. At the moment, we can’t, because the data is sitting on paper and is virtually unusable.
Speech recognition will continue to be a major help to doctors filling in these structured reports. We are already researching ‘talk forms’ – doctors talk in free narrative and the form fills in automatically. We also have to move towards using decision support systems to give immediate feedback to doctors when they make a mistake – at the point of dictation. Whether that happens over an iPod, a PDA or a mobile phone, it won’t matter – we will be there because in the future, every hospital will have speech recognition infrastructure.
Just check out the technology being used the next time you enter a hospital environment. You may be surprised what you hear.
