From the Mailbox: Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Doctors

Image via Wikipedia Occasionally readers write in with strategies that work especially well for them. Here's a tip from Dr. Bret Batchelor, an orthopedic surgeon, about using Dragon NaturallySpeaking in his practice. (Reprinted with permission. Thanks, Bret.)

I was reading some of your blog info. I am an orthopedic surgeon in private practice. I currently use a laptop with Dragon Naturally Speaking medical version with Word. The templates I have made for telcons, consult letters, SOAP and pre op H and P, have made the documentation of things amazingly thorough, quick and clean. There may be a place in your book to discuss the use of voice recognition in today's practice of medicine. Macros can be made to open a new template ("new SOAP note"), insert boilerplate text ("knee aspiration"), and save into a file ("print, save into consult letter file").

The program can also be used to navigate on your computer, but I find a combination of mouse clicks and commands is more efficient. For those who use EMR a dictation box can be pasted into the note.

I am certain you have come across this as a technology in medical practice. It is my belief that the combination of microphone technology and processor speed have made it a very practical solution.

Respectfully,

Bret Batchelor MD

Any other fans of Dragon NaturallySpeaking out there? The equivalent progarm for the Mac is Macspeech Dictate, which in my experience, is not as easy to use. If you successfully use Dragon NaturallySpeaking, Macspeech Dictate, or other voice recognition software in your medical practice, please feel free to speak up.

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