The practical benefits of Dragon Medical One for ambulatory care clinicians

 

In this article, we explore the practicalities of using speech recognition in a busy ambulatory environment. And we look at how practices can use AI-powered capabilities to drive efficiency and cost savings without putting extra pressure on clinicians or impacting patient care.

The time clinicians spend on documentation is creeping upward, with an average of 16 minutes and 14 seconds spent documenting each encounter in the EHR. Many clinicians are overwhelmed as they attempt to balance chart review, clinical notes, ordering, and other administrative tasks with their face-to-face patient care.

Like many professionals, For healthcare providers, productivity is a constant battle. But when practices look for ways to increase efficiency, they also face the risks of exacerbating clinician burnout and negatively impacting patient outcomes.

As demand for outpatient services continues to grow, clinicians need more effective ways to work, allowing them to care for their patients and meet their documentation requirements without after-hours work taking over their home lives.

We recently spoke with ambulatory care clinicians from independent practices nationwide about the necessity of challenging the existing norms in ambulatory care documentation processes. Many of them highlighted the difficulty of finding the right strategy for boosting efficiency without sacrificing care quality. Here’s how speech recognition can help them find that balance.

Speech recognition helps your practice reclaim time and budget

Time is an incredibly valuable resource in healthcare. When clinicians have more time in their day, they can see more patients, foster meaningful connections, dedicate more attention to complex cases, and collaborate more closely with their colleagues.

But documentation requirements can easily derail these plans; when 10 to 15-minute appointments are accompanied by 16 minutes of documentation, there’s simply too much to fit into a working day. Cutting down on patient-facing time shouldn’t be an option—so it’s all about how to streamline the administrative component of a patient visit.

Speech recognition is more than three times faster than typing. And solutions that are purpose-built for medical care settings and clinical systems can also speed up EHR navigation.

Dragon Medical One is a conversational AI assistant designed to support clinicians with their documentation tasks. It offers extensive assistance, from reviewing lab results to updating patient records. With advanced speech-to-text and voice command features, Dragon Medical One enables clinicians to customize their workflows, enhancing speed and efficiency.

Dragon Medical One helps clinicians reduce their documentation time by 50% during their workday, freeing up to two hours per shift. It also decreases after-hours documentation, or "pajama time," by 28%.

Speech recognition allows practices to find efficiencies elsewhere, too. Even in small, independent practices, outsourced transcription costs can run to tens of thousands of dollars annually. Replacing this slow, costly process allows leaders to repurpose staff and/or reallocate that budget toward improving services or even hiring more clinicians—without placing an extra administrative burden on clinical staff.

Simple to pick up and use

The idea of introducing speech recognition can be daunting, especially for practices staffed by clinicians who have been following traditional workflows for years. But Dragon Medical One isn’t just built for speed—it’s designed for ease of use, too.

If a clinician can dictate into a microphone, they can effortlessly use Dragon. It's that straightforward. Dragon Medical One, built on Nuance’s cutting-edge speech recognition technology, boasts an extensive medical vocabulary that is continuously updated with the latest information via the cloud. It is 99% accurate from the start and does not require extensive training. Gone are the days of reading prewritten texts aloud to train the tool to understand accents or medical terminology. Thanks to its built-in noise-cancelling technology, Dragon Medical One maintains excellent accuracy even in noisy environments like office visits with a crying baby or busy workstations with team members and other activities. In less than an hour, clinicians can confidently dictate notes and navigate the EHR.

Dragon Medical One is ideal for people who just want to dictate, but it also has more in-depth features for clinicians who want to push their efficiency even further. They can set up simple commands that insert common phrases or even whole paragraphs of text, or automate repetitive sections of their workflow.

Each clinician can create a working environment that fits them, helping them to be more productive and increasing their satisfaction. Throughout it all, our medical speech recognition experts can be on hand to assist with everything from the initial setup to building extensive custom commands—whatever a practice needs to get the most out of Dragon Medical One.

Let’s challenge the status quo in the ambulatory practice together

Speech recognition is a valuable asset for ambulatory practices, assisting clinicians in managing patient care, maintaining their wellbeing, and meeting the increasing demands for documentation quality and operational efficiency. For some clinicians, a "good enough" standard may be sufficient for their workflow. But for clinicians who embrace new processes, there’s a better way to work. With Dragon Medical One, clinicians can overcome the status quo to build a working environment that fits their needs, their patients’ needs, and those of their practice, too.