The Boons of Medical Dictation
You may have seen it in movies. You may have watched medically related shows practice it. But are you aware what doctors are doing holding out that recording device and talking like as if they are writing in their diaries? This act is called medical dictation.
It is the method used by many physicians today. This is currently the most efficient way to record a patient-doctor interaction as well as findings.
Why is medical dictation that important?
Since time immemorial recording has been a part of our lives. It has been used to document event, politics, lives, and history. And unknowingly, when you write in your journal and diary you also record a piece of your life. In the medical field, however, recording has significant role to play both for physicians and patients alike.
For one, recording helps build a patient’s medical history for future reference. Second, recording serves as proof and evidence in case there are medical malpractice claims. And thirdly, it is mandatory to maintain and keep medical records. Recording is a must.
But why use medical dictation as a recording method?
Time is of the essence.
For most physicians and healthcare professionals, time has always been scarce. They have little time to spare for recording though it is very important and necessary. It has been proven that medical dictation is time efficient for many. You can easily do it anytime you find a chance. Also, it has also been proven that many people can talk faster than they can write or type.
Convenience anytime, anywhere.
Aside from being time efficient, dictation is also very easy to do and very handy.
All you need to have is your recording device, which can be a specialised recorder or even a mobile phone. Mobile phones today are very smart and flexible in such a way that they can do other things aside from being used just to call and send SMS.
Healthcare professionals can even dictate and record patient meetings while doing other things or while taking their breaks or sipping warm coffee. Now, try that while writing or typing and you’ll see how efficient medical dictation is.
Lesser error and misconceptions.
Yes, that is true! Though medical dictation is not error free, it provides less errors than writing or typing. Why, you ask?
It is because of one reason: it is not being rushed.
Many medical records where doctors write to document interactions and findings are often misinterpreted by other healthcare professionals since they are not able to understand the handwriting too well.
Physicians need to tend to as many patients as they can to share their expertise to them. Recording their interaction, on the other hand, may give them lesser time for their patients. This is why most physicians write really fast which at times make their handwriting quite unrecognizable.
Medical dictation is quite a simple way to help physicians document. But it has truly shared a lot of huge benefits when compared to the traditional way of write or type method.