Tech & Innovation in Healthcare

Knowing who is speaking is the key.

You may have read about speech recognition software in the article, “Use Your Voice to Write More Detailed Medical Documentation,” but do you know the difference between speech recognition software and voice recognition software?

“Speech recognition is where the computer can recognize your spoken words, translate them into text, and save you from typing. Voice recognition is more like what you see in the movies, where the computer recognizes somebody’s voice as the individual and only then will unlock the safe,” explains Allen Hsiao, MD, FAAP, FAMIA, chief health information officer, professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine, interim chief of pediatric emergency medicine, Yale New Haven Health and Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.

The two terms are commonly used interchangeably, but they offer different functions that can both be useful in healthcare.

Maintain Infection Control With Voice Recognition Software

As discussed in the aforementioned article, speech recognition software allows providers to use their voices to dictate their encounters and create thorough and clear medical documentation. Voice recognition software takes the foundation of speech recognition and amps it up a notch. This software can identify the person to whom the voice belongs.

Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are examples of voice recognition software. During the initial setup, you teach the software to recognize your voice, so it can then perform tasks like telling you what’s on your calendar, providing the weather forecast, or even locating your phone if it’s missing in the house. By recognizing your voice, the software knows to check your calendar and not your significant other’s.

Healthcare providers could use voice recognition software in similar ways in the future.

Scenario 1: A patient arrives at their primary care physician’s (PCP’s) office for an annual wellness visit. During the encounter, the PCP could ask the voice recognition software to show the last CBC or thyroid level of the current patient. The computer would recognize the doctor’s voice and perform the task, showing the information on the screen — without the doctor touching the device.

Scenario 2: A PCP is in the middle of a physical evaluation and needs to perform an eye examination. Instead of walking across the room, flipping off the light switch, washing their hands again, and then grabbing the medical equipment, the PCP could ask the computer to dim the lights.

Using voice recognition software as an assistant to the physician could be incredibly beneficial to infection control, improving efficiency, and providing better patient interactions.