Philip Stein, M.D.

Assistant Professor, General Medicine

University of Rochester Medical School

 

When Dr. Philip Stein first tried using Dragon Naturally Speaking software ten years ago, he hoped it would help reduce the amount of time he was spending on documenting patient visits. A 15-minute patient visit could take 15 minutes just to write up, he found.

However, lacking the medical version of the software, with the terminology database, and adequate computing power, Phil found the program inefficient. So he went back to pen and paper, followed by a number of other attempts to increase his speed, including: dictating, scanning handwritten notes, using preformatted forms, and templates. "I tried everything," he says.

Then two years ago, the six physicians in the general medicine division decided to try the latest version of Dragon Naturally Speaking for medical professionals. Says Phil, "It's helped tremendously in that it's much faster" than the many other methods he tried.

He was also pleasantly surprised by the program's accuracy: "97% out of the box," he says, even correctly spelling long, obscure words. "[Dragon] gets it right."

In addition to saving the department thousands of dollars annually in transcription costs, Phil has found that it has dramatically reduced the time it takes to draft a note. "It allows you to do a well-documented note the way you'd like to, without spending your life writing notes."

Interview by Marcia Layton Turner, Layton & Co.