East Kent cuts turn around times with SRC

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust has been able to reduce cancer diagnosis times by deploying digital dictation with speech recognition from SRC.

The new technology is allowing pathologists to dictate results in real-time. As a result, histology reporting turnaround times have been cut from a week to often the same day.

Paul Williams, head of BMS cellular pathology at East Kent said: “It has been invaluable in helping us to improve reporting turnaround times and eradicate typing backlogs in spite of increasing workloads. Another, unexpected benefit has been freeing up secretarial staff to train in laboratory duties.”

SRC won a contract in August 2007 to provide digital dictation and speech recognition across the histopathology departments at Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital and The William Harvey Hospital.

The technology was delivered in phases. The initial phase, introduced in September 2007, deployed the core Winscribe digital dictation solution, with wireless headsets and waterproof foot pedals.

Once staff were familiar with the new system, a second phase was delivered in September 2008. This integrated the Dragon voice recognition element.

SRC also delivered project management and implementation consultancy, which included integrating the solution into the trust’s iSoft Apex Laboratory Information Management System, and staff training.

Since completing the deployment, the trust has reported a 99% accuracy rate for all speech recognition work across a variety of accents.

Chris Hart, chief executive at SRC said: “We are delighted that the work we have completed at East Kent Hospitals has helped deliver real and immediate impacts on performance levels, efficiencies as well as significant time cost savings.”

Link:SRC

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