[The author responds:]
Mark Dermer's experience with dictation software seems to echo my own - he too mentions significant implementation hassles and predicts that further improvements are needed before there is wide acceptance in the medical community.
I was simply trying to cut through the advertising hype to see how the system worked in a real office setting. I appreciate Dermer's concern that speed matters, but I doubt that most physicians have a 400-MHz machine with 256 MB of RAM in their offices, nor would they want to run out and buy one to run a single program.
Dragon Systems recommends a minimal system configuration of a 133-MHz Pentium processor with 32 MB of RAM to run its NaturallySpeaking Medical Suite. These requirements were exceeded by my Pentium Pro 200.
With time, the price of personal computers will continue to drop and performance will improve, and soon speech-recognition programs will be cost-effective and virtually hassle free for all users. Until then, one intermediate step suggested by Dermer is to have a local transcriptionist edit the dictation. Another option is to save the dictation as a sound file and ship it via the Internet to a transcription company, several of which use typists in countries where labour costs are low. As for me, I've gone back to my tape recorder and office assistant.
Finally, for those who wish to learn more, an excellent review of dictation software technology, with a comparison of different commercial products, was published recently. [1]
Robert Patterson MD, MSc
Leamington, Ont.
References
- 1.↵