Irish hospital deploys dictateIT

St Vincent’s University Hospital in Ireland has introduced a tailor made medical dictation solution from dictateIT.

The system allows more than 450 clinicians to pick up a a standard telephone and dictate notes. Clinicians can use designated buttons to rewind, fast forward and play.

A digital interface then converts the analogue telephone recordings into digital files, which are then made available to secretaries via a digital document repository.

Michael Rourke, ICT project manager at the hospital, said: “Doctors no longer have to secure new tapes every time they want to carry out a dictation. They just pick up the nearest phone, type in their pin, and then complete the process following the user instruction guide.

"Digitising the dictation allows for a faster turnaround in typing, less room for error, and is far more cost and time effective."

The system allows a super user in each department to look at workflow reports that show how much transcription has been completed, how many minutes of dictation are involved, and reallocate work. It also provides a secure audit trail of records.

Cecily Dawson, manager of secretarial service and patient services, added: “Under the old system, the tapes had to be picked up after each dictation and the demographics and GP address had to be typed in.

"In the event of the dictator not giving this information, it had to be looked up. The dictation was also saved under clinic name and date, making it very difficult to retrieve a letter.

“Dictation no longer gets lost or delayed as it is sent straight to the secretaries’ desks and in some instances has been transcribed before the clinic is over, or in cases where urgent letters are required it is transcribed instantly.”

Link: dictateIT