In addition, given Philips' core competencies in speech processing technologies and the strong installed base of Speech Mike among radiologists, the company is working to voice-enable its PACS workstations. Other PACS vendors working with Talk Technology include GE Medical and Marconi Medical. GE is also in the early phases of integrating the Talk Technology package with Applicare's RadWorks, which is GE's lower-end PACS product. This would make the same integrated voice recognition capabilities available to smaller clinics and hospitals. Marconi's results server automatically selects key images based on the report content of the dictation, eliminating the need for manual image marking.
Transcription is a very large part of the cost of the total study done on a patient.
The scan lasts about 60 seconds, while the rest of the process takes two to four days. Ultimately, Mardini sees voice recognition playing a central role throughout the hospital. Three years from now, no one's going to be talking about who's got the best core engine. It will be the applications, and the enabling technologies that make it possible to build those applications. Ms. Kincade is editor of Health Networking News , a biweekly business newsletter covering the medical information technology industry published by Diagnostic Imaging.