Economic evaluation of voice recognition for the clinicians' desktop at the Naval Hospital Roosevelt Roads

Abstract

This study investigated the voice recognition (VR) pilot project conducted at the Naval Hospital Roosevelt Roads during 1996 and 1997. The objective of the analysis was to determine the viability and economic benefits of using a commercial, off-the-shelf VR application as a clinician's input device for transcribing clinical encounter notes. Results show that VR technology provides numerous benefits, such as resulting in more thorough clinical encounter notes eliminating the need to hire medical transcriptionists, and reducing graphic user interface overload on the Windows-based Military Health Service Systems. In addition, our findings indicate that the use of computer technology during clinical encounters has no significant effect on patient-clinician relationships.