Thursday, October 2, 2014

A week with Voicebrook

First off, I'm so pleased at how much I remember about navigating the software. Go me! It has made the transition smoother than it could have been otherwise. That and my keyboard is a lot more accessible than it was last time I started using voice transcription software. Right now I'm doing things around 80% with voice controls and 20% with mouse clicks and typing.

Second, it makes everything take longer. A big contributor to that is how long each window takes to open, and that we're opening more windows than before. It is 5-10 seconds here and there, but it adds up. Then there's the proofreading and the editing, but I'm sure that will improve as I use it more and the software gets better trained. At least I hope so. I'm used to being able to cut while dictating instead of having to stop every time I say something to watch the words going into transcription to make sure they are the right words in the right place.

The net time turn around time is lower because it doesn't have to get dictated, go into the queue for the transcriptionists, and then transcribed. But it used to be handled by me and the transcriptionists, instead of just me... Meanwhile, the transcriptionists, who are still doing a bit of transcription (we'll just say that the doctors are easing into using Voicebrook, rather than going cold turkey), are picking up other administrative duties in addition to the ones they were already doing. What will happen long term remains to be seen.

Overall the software works well, the accuracy is 95%+ and that's good. But oh, that few percent that it isn't getting can be so frustrating!! Cholelith vs choleliths and having to correct things like 3 vessels to three vessels. I remind myself that it comes with training and it isn't nearly as bad as it was the last time I went through this 4 years ago.

I have added to the stock of templates with some personalized ones. Also, I've prefilled some bits with things that are the case much more often than not, like the aforementioned three vessels. It saves time to default to that and change it when it isn't right than to dictate something over and over. I'm working on maintaining a good attitude about it, mostly because I don't have a choice in the matter so might as well suck it up and forge on with what I have to work with. Hopefully speed will pick up.