Use of digital speech recognition in diagnostics radiology.

Purpose: Applicability and benefits of digital speech recognition in diagno stic radiology were tested using the speech recognition system SP6000. Meth ods: The speech recognition system SP 6000 was integrated into the network of the institute and connected to the existing Radiological Information Sys tem (RIS). Three subjects used this system for writing 2305 findings from d ictation. After the recognition process the date, length of dictation, time required for checking/correction, kind of examination and error rate were recorded for every dictation. With the same subjects, a correlation was per formed with 625 conventionally written finding. Results: After an 1-hour in itial training the average error rates were 8.4 to 13.3%. The first adaptat ion of the speech recognition system (after nine days) decreased the averag e error rates to 2.4 to 10.7% due to the ability of the program to learn. T he 2(nd) and 3(rd) adaptations resulted only in small changes of the error rate. An individual comparison of the error rate developments in the same k ind of investigation showed the relative independence of the error rate on the individual user. Conclusion: The resultsshow that the speech recognitio n system SP 6000 can be evaluated as an advantageous alternative for quickl y recording radiological findings. A comparison between manually writing an d dictating the findings verifies the individual differences of the writing speeds and shows the advantage of the application of Voice recognition whe n faced with normal keyboard performance.