Achieve Results - Edition 21

Brad Hall
Director of Administration
Buffalo Heart Group

When Buffalo Heart Group’s director of administration Brad Hall first saw Dragon Naturally Speaking demonstrated at a conference in 2005, he was eager to test it out. The practice was in the midst of rolling out an electronic medical records (EMR) platform and Brad was hopeful that speech recognition could be integrated. His goal was to simplify the transcription process and eliminate the practice’s rising medical transcription expense, which was already close to $150,000 a year and climbing.

So the duo began the important roll-out by identifying potential speech recognition champions within the practice and partnering with Achieve Results to provide the important training component. Champions were important, explains Brad, as a way to gain acceptance of a new documentation methodology among the practice as a whole. Although speech recognition has made great strides in being accepted within the medical community, says Brad, he reminded himself that patience would be key.

Fortunately, the group immediately had some success stories with doctors who elected to adopt Dragon and be trained in its use. Those successes continue. Today, there are six providers using speech recognition on a regular basis and several more have registered for training. This gradual adoption pace is exactly what Brad was hoping for: “we wanted to build momentum,” he says.

Take the typing challenge! Amy Burgess did!

I am pretty quick with the keyboard as you can see, but even as fast as I am, I can still be much more productive with the use of speech recognition software. I am much more comfortable sitting back in my chair and speaking, rather than hunching over my keyboard typing.

The personal benefit of speech recognition has provided me with a feeling of comfort. When I leave the office at night, I know that I was as efficient as I could possibly be. My notes, e-mails, and documents are detailed and in depth. My mind is relaxed as I arrive home, and my husband and I can enjoy dinner out, take our little dog for a walk, or play a game of tennis without thinking about work at all. In my mind, you cannot put a price on time spent doing things you love!

She currently types at a rate of 62 words per minute with a 94% accuracy and speaks 143 words per minute with a 98% accuracy.

Comparison:

Typing

Life and work have become hectic abnd complicated. There’s too much to do and not enough time. We rush form one meeting to another to another. And when wr return to the office there are five, 10, 15, 20 or more voice mail messages that need to be returned, and scores of e-mail messages to reply to an we’ve obly been gone

Speaking

Life and work have become haptic and complicated. There's too much to do and not enough time. We rush from one meeting to another to another. And when we return to the office there are five, 10, 15, 20 or more voicemail messages that need to be returned, and scores of e-mail messages to reply to and we've only been gone for a few hours.

On our desks are piles of papers that we've got to do something with. There are letters to write, proposals to prepare, thanks to follow up on, and lots of other miscellaneous stuff that's been hanging around for days, weeks, or months.

On the monitor we've attached yellow, blue, and green sticky notes as reminders of things to do or people to call. Our in and out boxes have become hold boxes filled with on open mail,

Eliminate Lower Value tasks

One common misconception that seems to hold organizations back from technology adoption is the belief that productivity improvements will necessitate staff reductions. That is, because of the reduced work load, employees will be cut. Fearing the potential loss of dedicated support staff members, some organizations have tried to find a work-around – a new work process that will keep their talented team members employed without the use of new technology. It doesn’t always work.

The good news is that new technology does not necessitate layoffs. What it does allow is better use of everyone’s time – from executives’ to attorneys’ to paralegals’ to doctors’ to PAs’ and all administrative staff. Instead of being assigned more menial or clerical tasks, staff members can be given higher value assignments that benefit the organization and the employee’s professional development. Using computer technology to standardize work processes is a immediate and significant ways to reduce the amount of time staff spends on lower value tasks.

But more importantly, by increasing individual productivity and reducing the amount of administrative work to be done, staff members can be reassigned to more challenging, higher-level work. It’s the old “trickle down effect” All employees can make better use of their time, replacing more menial tasks with more thoughtful, strategic assignments. By eliminating lower value work, employees enjoy more interesting challenges and enhanced job satisfaction.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Your comments allow for continuous enhancement to the services we offer our customers. (585)586-4550 x227

My very best, Dana