Although voice recognition can greatly benefit your practice, there are also some drawbacks involved. Like adapting to other aspects of using an EHR, implementing voice recognition takes both practice and patience. It is often necessary to make corrections on dictation mistakes and it takes time to train your software to it's optimal ability. Another drawback is that when using voice recognition in your office, the files are not accessible to everyone and are not networkable. Voice recognition software takes up a lot of RAM and may require an ungraded computer in order to get started. Here's what some of your peers are saying about the drawbacks of voice recognition:
Dr. Bill Wade, St. Louis, MO says:
"Learning to use any voice recognition product is a skill. Just like learning the art of auscultation, proficiency at voice recognition takes good training, practice and good equipment. Just buying a stethoscope does not qualify one as a cardiologist. How well it works for you will depend on your realistic expectations, the amount of training you avail yourself to, learning the correct way to make corrections and "teach" the software, and your willingness to practice."
KnowBrainer, Hermitage, TN says:
"The biggest reason physicians are giving up on voice recognition is because they have no backup. Most of them purchased their software from CompUSA, which is consumer software. They are lead to believe that their microphone and sound card were adequate when in fact, they are not."
Jim McNabb, MD, Mooresville, NC says:
"One drawback to DNS 8 is that you really can't install NaturallySpeaking on each network computer if you have more than six PC's. That's because DNS 8 is limited to six installs and must be activated over the Internet. Also, ScanSoft states that the end-user license is per user, not per system. Therefore, you need to purchase a Dragon Naturally Speaking license for each individual user."
