An audit that has pitched the performance of a digital dictation software platform directly against a traditional tape-based dictation system in a modern medical practice has revealed some startling improvements in efficiency and document turnaround times.
Lexacom, a leading developer and supplier of digital dictation software in the UK, recently teamed up with the Appletree Medical Practice in Belper, Derbyshire to complete the audit. The time taken to perform certain operational tasks using both dictation platforms was recorded during the course of a month and the figures were then collated and used to draw an accurate conclusion about the efficiency of both dictation platforms in a busy working environment.

The audit revealed that the average time taken to process urgent patient information within the month took 31 hours, 42 minutes with the tape-based dictation system, but the Lexacom digital dictation software reduced this average turnaround time to 1 hour, 7 minutes.

When analysing the time taken to process routine patient information at the Appletree Medical Practice, the tape-based dictation system took an average of 98 hours, 17 minutes, compared to an average turnaround time of 26 hours, 48 minutes using Lexacom’s digital dictation software.

These results clearly show that using a digital dictation platform over a tape-based dictation system...