Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust speeds up document turnaround times with SRC Dragon Professional Speech Recognition solution

London, 21 May 2007 – SRC, the UK’s leading provider of digital dictation and speech recognition solutions to Healthcare organisations, today announced they have helped Homerton University Hospital eradicate document backlogs in their Radiology department with the deployment of Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional version 9 (DNS), Speech Recognition system.

The project follows a successful pilot of both the DNS software and SRC services, which highlighted the systems ability to improve document turnaround times and reduce typing costs by automatically creating documents from spoken words and commands.

Barry Cotton, Head of Imaging at Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, who foresaw a need for a speech recognition solution in the wake of reductions in secretarial resource, said he was “delighted with the overall performance of the software and the speed at which users positively adopted the new system.”

The most stringent challenge Barry faced was clearing and then stamping out typing backlogs. “Before SRC deployed the system we had over 1,000 reports awaiting transcription. Once the Speech Recognition system was in place we managed to clear the backlog in two weeks and the software has ensured typing backlogs haven’t built up again.” As an underlying result, the reduced backlog ensures that reports and urgent diagnosis and treatments can be delivered without unnecessary delays, “document turnaround times are now immediate thanks to the software rather than taking days,” continued Barry.

SRC, were responsible for installing the Dragon Speech Recognition software and training Homerton’s Radiology department on how to use the system. Barry added: “The training definitely helped ensure staff were up and running quickly. With new software there’s always a slight worry with how it will be accepted. It was good to know that SRC were always on hand to help and support us and they really broke the training down into easily digestible sections.” Following on from the training, Homerton now feel confident to train new users using existing users, which “naturally helps reduce costs for the Trust,” added Barry.

Chris Hart, CEO at SRC said: “It is great to be working with Homerton to help them deliver greater efficiencies in their document creation process. We are seeing more interest in Speech Recognition in the Healthcare market and we understand our customers want to harness the software to enhance document turnaround times. We look forward to developing the partnership with Homerton and deploying Speech Recognition across other departments to help the Trust save money and improve Patient care.”