I recently wrote a blog about tech, and if you would like to give it a read, click here.
The thing about it is that these blogs always provoke the same kind of questions and the same sort of interaction, but people ask me about digital dictation systems and how we have integrated it into the practice and how it speeds things up.
Our digital dictation system has been in place for about 10 years now and so it’s really not rocket science, it is centred around the Olympus DS/2400 package.
Basically, you buy a digital dictation machine with a SD card and if you want, they come with a transcription pedal and software for a Mac or for a PC.
You pay someone to type what you speak into the machine and you can either outsource someone to type this and there are multiple virtual PA’s online, or you can employ one within your practice or someone you may know.
There are countless people around who would like to do this for you.
The benefit of doing it within the practice, is that you can then have a standard set of notes which is dropped into your case notes, which says “see dictated notes, dictated at the time of surgery and in a contemporaneous fashion by CC and inserted once typed” or something like that.
I have used this format and it has been through our GDC case and it has been validated.
This is in fact, the format that consultants in the hospital have used for years, with dictation of notes.
You just need to set up a system in your practice where this works, enter case notes for the patient that you want and enter just standard notes for the patients, you dictate.
I suggest that you have a sheet where you write down all the dictation, which is then handed with the dictaphone to the person who is going to type it.
We also use Drop Box, in our practice to transfer the audio files through SD cards to the person who is typing.
You can use it for your case notes, and your letters.
You can use it for your preparation notes for implant treatments and for your CBCT reports.
Once you get more confident at it, you can use it for your emails.
I worked late last night, (I didn’t intend to) but between 23:15 and 00:15, I dictated and emptied my inbox entirely from all of those emails that show the big long jobs that needed to do but couldn’t get around to doing them.
It is a very, very effective way to communicate and a massively time efficient way to do emails, case notes compliance (and even a blog!!)
You have to trial it and work it yourself and learn from your mistakes at it, but I promise you that a year from now, you wish you would have started today.
Blog Post Number - 2104