Blog: Mainstream Speech Recognition and Medical Speech Recognition, is it all the same?

The founders of Recognosco were involved in the very inception of speech recognition technology. It has come a long, long way with significant strides in recent years. The technology has helped to transform industries and sectors including the healthcare industry. We often get asked about how speech technology in the medical world compares with mainstream speech recognition like Alexa and Siri. Is it all the same? Can anyone provide it? Will it still work for me?

Healthcare and medical terminology is extremely complex and specialised whereas mainstream speech technology is meant for exactly that. Very generalised conversation. In this blog post, we will explore the crucial distinctions between mainstream speech recognition and medical speech recognition, highlighting the unique differences and applications.

Understanding Mainstream Speech Recognition:

Mainstream speech recognition refers to speech technology that enables the conversion of spoken words into written text in everyday applications. Well known, mainstream voice assistants include the likes of Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa. These systems are designed to understand and interpret general language patterns and commands accurately.

Key features of mainstream, generic speech recognition:

• Focus on general language processing and understanding with a broad range of generic requests and commands

• Integration with popular consumer devices, mobile apps, and virtual assistants

• Emphasis on tasks such as voice commands (tell me the weather today), dictation (send a message to mum), and voice search (what time does my local supermarket close?).

Understanding Medical Speech Recognition

When we come to compare with medical speech recognition, this is far more tailored and very specific for the healthcare industry. It caters to the unique needs and requirements of healthcare professionals, enabling them to efficiently document patient appointments, create medical reports, and navigate electronic health records (EHR/EMR/PACS/RIS) systems.

Key features of medical speech recognition:

• Specialised vocabulary and terminology: Medical speech recognition systems recognise and transcribe medical terminology and acronyms accurately.

• Healthcare software integration: the speech recognition SDK enables seamless integration with medical software systems enabling clinicians to dictate patient notes directly into their EHR/EMR/PACS/RIS, saving time and enhancing accuracy.

• Providing focused vocabularies for medical specialties: Medical speech recognition accommodates a wide range of medical specialties, such as radiology, pathology, cardiology, and more.

• Context-awareness: With the development in medical speech recognition, our technology understands the context of medical conversations, taking into account patient information, diagnoses, medications, and treatment plans.

• Compliance and security: Medical speech recognition systems adhere to stringent privacy and security regulations, ensuring the protection of sensitive patient data.

Benefits of Medical Speech Recognition:

Medical speech recognition technology offers several benefits to healthcare providers and ultimately enhances patient care. Some of the key advantages include:

• Increased efficiency and productivity: Clinicians can dictate reports, notes, prescriptions, and other medical documentation more quickly and accurately than typing.

• Improved documentation quality: Speech recognition reduces the likelihood of errors or omissions in medical reports, leading to more comprehensive and accurate patient records.

• Enhanced patient interaction: By eliminating the need for extensive typing and switching between various medical applications, medical speech recognition allows clinicians to focus more on patient interaction during consultations.

• Time and cost savings: Streamlined documentation processes save valuable time for healthcare providers and reduce administrative costs.

While mainstream speech recognition has revolutionised the way we interact with speech technology in our daily lives, medical speech recognition provides very specialised language topics specifically for healthcare professionals. With its tailored vocabulary, seamless integration with healthcare software, and context-awareness, medical speech recognition offers immense value to the healthcare industry.

Ultimately improving efficiency, security, accuracy, and patient care. Adoption of medical speech recognition continues to rise to assist with the growing demands on healthcare.