A recent survey of more than 1,700 doctors shows that medical professionals now spend around two hours a day on documentation tasks – while at the same time having less time to work with patients. Compared to the previous year, this means that on average eleven minutes less time is available for patient-related activities (1). This development not only affects the quality of care, but also the satisfaction of medical staff. This makes it all the more important to relieve doctors of administrative tasks in a targeted manner (2).
High pressure in everyday life
The fictional case of Dr Meier illustrates how stressful the increasing documentation workload is. As a senior physician in the emergency department of a large hospital, she treats patients with acute symptoms every day – from chest pain and shortness of breath to infections and serious injuries following accidents. Each situation requires not only rapid medical action, but also complete and comprehensible documentation.
But everyday work is hectic, and documentation is tedious and time-consuming. Even though data, findings and reports are stored centrally in the hospital information system, a separate programme is usually required for dictating and managing reports. Speech recognition is also tied to the computer, which further limits flexibility. Especially in situations where the treatment room is immediately occupied again or an examination took place in another room, there is often no time for direct documentation. In such cases, Dr. Meier notes down keywords on paper or in the digital patient file – the complete report has to wait.
As a result, a mountain of unfinished dictations accumulates over the course of the shift, which often cannot be processed until lunchtime or after work. Lunch is often replaced by coffee, and in the evenings, it is also common for Dr Meier to start up her computer again after dinner and dictate the last reports.
Speech recognition as a concrete relief
Unfortunately, this kind of daily routine is no exception for doctors in the Swiss healthcare system. That’s why we’re stepping in and taking the pressure off with Voicepoint Xenon® – a solution platform that covers all medical documentation use cases.
Voicepoint Xenon® was specially developed to reduce the administrative workload for medical professionals and make documentation more efficient and seamless. It combines modern medical speech recognition, ambient documentation for conversation summaries and dictation management in a powerful platform solution.
Thanks to its modular design, you decide which functions you need. Voicepoint Xenon® consistently puts the user at the centre and enables patient documentation to be created in a variety of ways – flexibly, precisely and tailored to your individual workflows.
An additional advantage: thanks to the secure cloud solution, no additional hardware is required: dictation or recording can be conveniently carried out via smartphone. This means that speech recognition is available wherever you need it.
Assumed values illustrate how much added value this brings in practice:
| Effort per consultation (including conversation and creation of the dictation) | Time savings with Voicepoint Xenon® Fusion | |
| 1 report | Approx. 19 minutes | Approx. 4 minutes |
| 1 day | Approx. 285 minutes | Approx. 45 minutes |
| 1 week | Approx. 24 hours | Approx. 4 hours |
| 1 month | Approx. 89 hours | Approx. 14 hours |
| 1 year | Approx. 45 days | Approx. 7 days |
And what does that mean in everyday working life? The example of Dr Meier clearly illustrates the difference.
Dr Meier now dictates her reports either immediately after her consultation hours using Voicepoint Xenon® Dragon via smartphone, independently of her workplace, or she uses Voicepoint Xenon Fusion®, which records conversations during the consultation and provides her with a structured summary immediately afterwards. This not only saves her valuable time but also reduces the workload for her team. If she does need to take notes, she can also record them in the app. All relevant information about the consultation is thus available in one central location.
Today, Dr Meier can finally take time for a quiet lunch break again – and her evenings are hers to enjoy, without any unfinished reports weighing on her mind.
Minimised documentation effort. People back in the spotlight. Finishing work while it’s still light outside.
Discover the possibilities of Voicepoint Xenon®.
References
(1) Regulatory requirements: Doctors complain about unnecessary effort (medinside.ch)
(2) The administrative burden on doctors continues to increase (fmh.ch)