Reducing Patient Wait Times for Diagnostic Services. Overview - In the NW, Voice Recognition has been shown to remove several steps from the report production process after a Radiologist has dictated a draft report, including typing by secretaries, checking of drafts by Radiologists & the need for further typing corrections. Voice Recognition has only two steps, dictation + verification (“signoff”), both performed by the Radiologist, usually in one step. Source – Countess of Chester Hospital 3.5 days down to c 1 day due to VR Pre-PACS DIGITAL DICTATION Post-PACS DIGITAL DICTATION Voice Recognition Supporting Technology Solution - Voice Recognition Software converts spoken words into text. CSC supply Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking Software to do this, working with the Radiology System (HSS CRIS) and PACS (GE Centricity). CSC supplied Voice Recognition software currently costs, on a per workstation basis, £690 capital, £104 pa revenue. Most Trusts have also bought in additional support to assist with implementation, training and workflow redesign. As the above graph shows, one of the first Trusts to go live in the NW, the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, has already seen significant reductions in the time it takes to deliver a completed report on an Examination from the time it was taken. Prior to PACS this used to take about 6 to 7 days, after PACS this fell to around 3 days using the same traditional Digital Dictation. After Voice Recognition was introduced this fell to about 1 day, giving a saving of 2 days. NW Rollout There are circa 510 Radiologists (345 consultants plus SpRs) in the NW and around 170 reporting Radiographers and Sonographers. 15 Trusts are live with Voice Recognition in Radiology and 12 have implementation projects underway leaving only two acute Trusts that have yet to start their implementation projects. The “Voice Recognition Target Group” is therefore about 700 and rising. Currently there are 212 users, which equates to a third of the target group Every year around 5.5 million Radiology Examinations are taken across the North West. Approximately 75% of the exams are subsequently reported by a Radiologist (just over 4 million), so if all Trusts achieved the same elapse time savings as the Countess of Chester Hospital, due to Voice Recognition, this could save the equivalent of circa 8 million days per year (2 days per exam x 4 million). Main Benefits of Voice Recognition Primary benefits Improves report turnaround times by as much as a week, and therefore contributes to attainment of waiting time targets and improves referral to diagnosis times. Frees up secretarial typing time to use on other activities &/or saves money from typing posts that are no longer required. At the Countess of Chester Hospitals typist staff time released as a result of Voice Recognition was 60 % = 7 wte down to 2.6 wte. If this is extrapolated and repeated across the NW the total typist times saved could equate to circa 180 posts or nearly £3 million per year recurring. Other benefits Reduces transcription data quality issues Offers potential to expand Radiology capacity. June 2009 National Programme for IT in the North West – Enabling Transformation of Services for Patients