Cutting Transcription Costs Leads to Increased Adoption of Speech Recognition

Nuance Communications, Inc. (Burlington, MA, USA), a supplier of speech solutions, reported that its RadWhere speech recognition system has significantly improved radiology workflow and productivity at three U.S. facilities: Cook Children's Health Care System (Fort Worth, TX, USA); University of Florida Health Science Center Jacksonville (USA); and University of Mississippi Medical Center (Jackson, USA). With accuracy rates up to 99%, RadWhere improves the day-to-day tasks of everyone involved in the interpretation and delivery of diagnostic imaging exams, from referring physician to technologist, and ultimately increases the quality of patient care.

At the core of the RadWhere application is the latest in structured speech recognition technology, optimized specifically for the radiology domain to work within picture archiving and communication system (PACS) and radiology information system (RIS) environments and significantly reduce or eliminate the need for transcription. RadWhere goes beyond speech recognition, offering numerous dictation options to meet the unique needs of each user.

"We switched to RadWhere because of its superior speech recognition abilities, even with foreign dialects," said John Mowry, digital imaging manager, Cook Children's Health System. "The number of studies that we're able to complete with so few radiologists since implementing RadWhere is astonishing. RadWhere has enabled us to go from about 46% self-editing with more than a 20-hour turnaround time [TAT] to 99% self-editing with less than a six-hour average TAT."

Cook Children's Health Care System, a pediatric hospital that services Tarrant County in Texas, went live with RadWhere in September 2008. The facility is tasked with processing approximately 135,000 studies per year with only three full-time radiologists. RadWhere helped tremendously with productivity, eliminating wasted time spent on sign-off by enabling radiologists to complete reports all at once without the back-and-forth transcription approval process. Cook's has saved approximately US$9,000 per month since implementing RadWhere, totaling about $54,000 in less than six months. Return on investment (ROI) was realized in just four months.

University of Florida Health Science Center Jacksonville, a 700-plus bed facility with a large emergency room and Level 1 trauma center, switched to RadWhere in September 2007. With 16 attending radiologists and 21 residents, the facility completes 280,000 exams per year. At initial implementation, it took just one weekend for RadWhere to become fully functioning within the current PACS environment. "Since deploying RadWhere, the productivity of the radiologists at the University of Mississippi Medical Center has gone through the roof," said Daryle Heath, director of imaging services, the University of Mississippi Medical Center. "These are tough times for us all and healthcare entities are certainly not immune to economic pains. Now more than ever, we're relying on strategic IT [information technology] investments, such as RadWhere, because of their proven return on investment."

The University of Mississippi Medical Center, which has 25 resident radiologists and less than 20 staff radiologists, has been fully utilizing RadWhere since May 2008 within their current PACS. Currently, approximately 40 radiologists are servicing physicians from all over the state using RadWhere to process approximately 260,000 exams per year. Deployment of the technology took less than 90 days, and since then the facility has eradicated all transcription, leading to annual savings of approximately $900,000. ROI was realized in less than six months, while TAT went from 80% of reports completed within 24 hours to 99.9% of reports completed in that same timeframe.

RadWhere offers integration into existing radiology workflow, from a single multisite worklist to automated structured reporting to voice driven navigation, editing, and electronic signature.

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