Voice recognition represents one of the new technologies that are changing the practice of radiology. Thirty percent of radiology practices are either currently or plan to have voice recognition (VR) systems. VR software encompasses 4 core processes: spoken recognition of human speech, synthesis of human readable characters into speech, speaker identification and verification, and comprehension. Many software packages are available offering VR. All these packages should contain an interface with the radiology information system. The benefits include decreased turnaround time and cost savings. Its advantages include the transfer of secretarial duties to the radiologist with a result in decreased productivity.
Voice recognition represents one of the new technologies that are changing the practice of radiology. Dictation is an integral part of the day to day practice and the fundamental means by which radiologists communicate with clinicians and patients. Improvements in this area can save time and have large economic consequences. In the past decade, major advances have occurred in both speech and voice recognition (VR). These advances have been possible largely due to the development of large vocabulary continuous speech recognition systems in English. In addition, the development of the Internet and the concept of the intranet have created an infrastructure that can support such a dictation system. 1,2 It has been estimated that 30% of radiology practices either currently have or plan to install VR systems. Previous practices among radiologists have included manual writing of reports or the recording of a report on a tape followed with processing by medical transcriptionists. These modes of dictation and transcription are time consuming and expensive, and lead to inevitable delays in reporting and the availability of results.
The use of VR systems in radiology reports is feasible because radiologic vocabulary tends to be fairly consistent and reproducible within most practices. 1,2