Uses for SRT Go Beyond Medical Transcription

Advance for Health Information Professionals recently published an online article entitled: Beyond Transcription – Speech Recognition Holds Promise for Patient Care that discussed other ways the medical industry can use SRT (Speech Recognition Technology).

Although most MTs fear SRT will put them out of a job,this article delved into the voice-to-text technology, and its uses for patient follow-up, medication adherence and health screenings.

Specifically, some physicians are using speech recognition to “schedule calls to patients with customized questions and let the system do the data gathering.” The web-based calling systems listen for a human response and then communicate those responses to the physicians involved as well as record it on an Electronic Health Record (EHR).

Of course, some problems can arise when collecting the automatized data. Namely, the patient has to cooperate. Many patients don’t answer the phone or can’t complete the analysis because they are using their cell phones and cannot hear or are distracted. Also, the entire system relies on patients to tell the truth.