Dr. Robert Williams, sitting in his Golden office, spoke quickly into his headset microphone, recounting notes of his last patient – words that flashed onto his computer screen.
Williams, who sees about 24 patients a day, was taking his lunch hour to finish dictating his notes on the morning’s patients.
“I was mostly hand writing before,” said the 63-year-old family practice physician. “I only dictated the complex cases.”
Now, Williams is among a small but growing group of physicians using voice-recognition software that automatically translates spoken words to written text.
Originally developed to help the disabled communicate, the technology is creating electronic patient records that eventually will be shared with hospitals.
New West Physicians, a group of 47 doctors from 15 Denver metro- area practices, experimented with the technology for more than a year.
The doctors paid $4,500 each for training, a laptop computer loaded with the software and wireless Internet capability. The software alone costs about $1,000.
Most of the doctors had never used a computer at work, and many hadn’t used one at all, said Ruth Benton, New West’s chief executive.
But Benton, who has plans to start phasing in electronic medical records next year, was determined to push new technology.
“Physicians are recalcitrant,” Benton said.
Before voice-recognition software, 20 percent of New West doctors were dictating patient notes to transcribers over the phone or writing up their own notes, Benton said.
Physicians mumbled words or scribbled in illegible handwriting, Benton said.
“I didn’t really know computers until my daughter took a trip to Europe, and I had to learn e-mail,” confessed Dr. John Gale, a family physician who’s practiced for 27 years in Golden.
A year later, all but one or two New West doctors are speaking their notes into computers that type up case histories, Benton said.
Gale has even installed wireless Internet at home so he can work on his laptop there.
The voice-recognition software hasn’t saved much time, yet. But it has saved thousands of dollars on transcriber fees, which can run to $3,000 a month, doctors said.
And the process has yielded an unexpected result: far more detailed notes.
“You put a lot more information in,” Williams said.
Randy Larscheidt, sales and marketing director for Castle Rock- based Adaptive Technologies – which helped develop the software – said doctors are stimulated by having both audio and visual elements to their dictation.
Massachusetts-based Nuance Communications Inc. created the program, called Dragon Naturally- Speaking, that the New West Physicians use.
“The biggest concern that we had in working with a company like New West was that there were physicians who were technophobic,” Larscheidt said. “But we found just the opposite.”
Staff writer Marsha Austin can be reached at 303-820-1242 or maustin@denverpost.com.
