Bess Herbert, MD Webster Family Medicine Webster, New York

Photography by Brenda Washington

In August 2007, when the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) began requiring its member physicians to use speech recognition software, Dr. Bess Herbert immediately signed up for training. Although she was being forced to switch from the traditional record-and-transcribe method as a bridge to electronic medical records at URMC, of which Webster Family Medicine is a part, Dr. Herbert was optimistic about the benefits, including immediate filing of dictated notes. But her optimism soured a little when she found using the system more challenging than she had anticipated.

After her initial training, Dr. Herbert took 30 minutes to dictate one note – far too much time, she believed. "I had to go back to work on the weekends just to get the documentation done," she explains. The extra time required to complete a note "was negatively impacting my family life," because she was spending so much time at work. Hearing of her frustration, Achieve Results returned to explore what was holding Dr. Herbert back and discovered she was so focused on learning the program's features that she was getting bogged down in the actual dictation. Once she turned her focus to simply using the Dragon software, her speed and skill improved immediately. "I do see improvement already," she confirms. Although Dr. Herbert currently takes 5-10 minutes to complete a note and file it – an improvement of more than 75% through her retraining – she aims to get the total time required down to 1-2 minutes per note.

Interview by Marcia Layton Turner, Layton & Co.