Healthier Rx: Integrate Voice & Mobile

A healer becomes a technical pathfinder when he combines voice and wireless technology. Many of the strongest advocates for voice recognition systems also champion other emerging technologies. For example, Dr. William Coyne, an internist/pediatrician and partner Jefferson Medical Association, a four-doctor medical group in Port Townsend, WA, believes there's tremendous value in combining voice technology and wireless mobile computing.
		Dr. William Coyne, an internist/pediatrician and partner at Jefferson Medical Association.

Coyne has used Global Digital Information's CaduSys medical record system to document all of his patient encounters for the past two years. Recent advances have convinced me that voice will completely replace all transcription services within three or four years, he says. But voice is not a good enough solution in and of itself.

Dr. Coyne carries a Fujitsu 510, a Windows 95-compatible pen tablet, with him all day. He uses the tablet and CaduSys templates to fill in the lion's share of a medical record while he sees a patient. The Fujitsu connects wirelessly via Symantec Corp.'s pcAnywhere to the workstation in his office.

After he sees patients, Coyne uses his PC to review the sessions. He uses the version of Dragon Systems, dictation product that is built into CaduSys to add notes not easily captured with pen tablet macros. The solution allows him to create complete records almost instantly.

"With human transcriptionists, you have to wait to get a copy of your record," he says. "When I decide to admit a patient to the hospital, I want my notes to go with that patient. Tomorrow is not soon enough."

He says the voice response system also saves the practice money. It used to cost $1,000 a month to have a transcriptionist type up his notes. Those transcribed notes then had to be reviewed, which was an added inconvenience. Pairing voice with CaduSys's template-driven menus on his mobile computer provides him with a complete record that is always up to date. "Recent advances have convinced me that voice will completely replace all transcription services within three or four years."