About Morecambe Bay NHS Trust’s Dietitian Department

University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay provides care to patients living in Morecambe, Lancaster, South Lakes and Barrow. The Dietetic team are a small team of Dietitians and Dietetic Assistants that offer advice to patients of all ages across this area.

We caught up with VoicePower client and expert in Paediatric Dietetics at Morecambe Bay, Natalie Knight to share their journey into the world of speech recognition.

Too Much to Do, Too Little Time

Like many other NHS organisations, the dietetic team at Morecambe Bay Hospital were typing all of their documentation manually. Whether it was updating Lorenzo (their clinical system), sending emails or creating referral letters, they were typing it all.

“The department has very little admin support therefore we had to type and format our own letters which was time-consuming.” – Natalie Knight

As Natalie pointed out, capturing patient information in this manner was extremely time-consuming. The dietetics team were spending a considerable amount of time on typing which did impact the amount of time that Dietitians could spend on patient input.

“The main challenge was time constraints. Clinicians were spending valuable time typing letters.” – Natalie Knight

From Typing to Speaking

Due to time constraints, the Dietetic team investigated if there was a more efficient and productive method of reporting.

Considering that VoicePower had already helped Morecambe Bay Hospital’s Integrated Musculoskeletal Department to be more productive, they were the obvious choice to assist Natalie and the Dietitian Department too.

“We chose VoicePower as other teams in the trust were using them and the Dragon program, it was highly recommended.” – Natalie Knight

As a part of VoicePower’s Workflow Consultancy Service, the Dietitian Department had the opportunity to highlight its aims and objectives in a new software solution.

Together, we looked at the issues that the department would like to overcome and the requirements that their new solution needs to meet.

Following in the Integrated Musculoskeletal Department‘s footsteps, and with VoicePower’s guidance, the Dietitian Department also decided that Dragon Medical One speech recognition solution was the best option for them.

Dragon Medical One

Dragon Medical One is a form of speech recognition technology that is cloud-based and designed specifically for healthcare professionals.

It has an in-built medical vocabulary so it recognises medical terminology and it is also compatible with most clinical systems, including Lorenzo that Natalie and her colleagues use.

Being hosted via cloud technology also means that Dragon Medical One is extremely light on Morecambe Bay’s IT infrastructure and most importantly, all patient data is fully secure and GDPR compliant.

About Dragon Medical One

“The more that you use the software the better it is. It significantly reduces time spent on admin tasks.” – Natalie Knight

A great benefit of using Dragon speech recognition is that documents can be created and authorised in the same instance. There is no need to send dictations off to a typist and then back to the creator to approve, files can be sent instantly following completion.

“I also use Dragon to write long emails and reports.” – Natalie Knight

Guided Along the Way

The Dietitian Department ensured a successful deployment of their investment in speech recognition training.

In VoicePower’s many years in the business, they know too well that clients who take the time to learn about the software and how to use it, achieve the best results.

“VoicePower provided 2 training sessions for each user which was most useful.” – Natalie Knight

The team were also covered under VoicePower’s technical support package. This means that they could call VoicePower with any Dragon-related questions. Not only does this provide peace of mind, but it also ensures the absolute minimum of downtime.

“The support team are excellent and we are able to contact them if we have any problems.” – Natalie Knight

Check out this demonstration of Dragon Medical One in action…