The radiology department at Erasmus MC, an innovative university hospital in Rotterdam (NL), and G2 Speech, market leader in speech recognition and workflow solutions, have been working closely together over the past year to develop and optimise structured reporting combined with speech recognition.
Increasing demand for raw data
To improve quality of care, a large amount of aggregated data on the treatment of a patient is essential. An important part of this data gathering is within a radiology report. The radiology department at Erasmus MC initiated a partnership with G2 Speech to create an easy to use, structured reporting tool. The goal was to simply collect data without affecting the workflow of the radiologist. To make this possible SpeechReport, provided by G2 Speech, has developed its functionalities, introducing a structured reporting element. With this functionality the clinician is presented with a fully configurable template that after dictating, provides a clear overview for the referrer. This input will also be stored in their EPR and a database.
The method of working of structured reporting
Jan-Jaap Visser, radiologist at Erasmus MC, was intensively involved in the project from the start. New technologies are constantly monitored in daily practice. Speaking about the new technology, Jan-Jaap said: “It is important that the workflow of the radiologist is affected as little as possible. There are differences in the way of working between radiologists: one would rather navigate with voice commands, the other would prefer to navigate with a SpeechMike. Both possibilities are offered in SpeechReport. The speech recognition populates as you dictate. There’s no longer a need have to wait until the last field is complete, you simply dictate directly, whilst the text is populated into the intended boxes. This ensures that you don’t lose tempo whilst reporting.
The option to work with a mouse and keyboard is still there but the voice control option is also available and is based on the name of the field to be completed. The radiologist wants to keep his/her eyes on the images and not constantly on their screen. The layout design ensures that any errors are quickly visible and ensures that corrections are considerably easier to make.”
Marieke Hollewand, product manager at G2 Speech states that the input of Erasmus MC is most valuable. Their involvement ensures that the technology is ready for daily practice. “Our goal is that the radiologists stay as close as possible to their way of working and at the same time profit from the benefits of structured reporting, such as automatic data-extraction.”
Structured Reporting in daily practice
Herman Pieterman, head patientcare department radiology and initiator of this collaboration: “The data from structured reports can be visualised in an Excel database. This visualisation offers the radiologist the ability to directly work with the data. He/she doesn’t have to request an external authority or provider to make the aggregated data available. However, the data needs to be presented in such a format that he/she can extract immediate results from it. Per patient, the data will be shown on one line.” According to Herman Pieterman, quality control is the most important advantage of structured reporting. “This is the only way to discover how we perform compared to our peers. Another benefit is that we can control complications and report critical findings. The compliance to guidelines will increase sharply. Also, data will be accessible to regional or national registrations. This is also how the burden of registration can be taken away from other specialists, as a significant part of the treatment is determined by radiological findings”.
Results for everyone involved
The results that structured reporting has to offer influences everyone involved according to Herman Pieterman. ”The improvement of the quality, which is ensured by this way of reporting, is in the best interest of the patient. The communication with the referrer is greatly improved, as the reports are easier to read. The MDM (multi disciplinary meeting) will have more information at its disposal to agree on a sensible policy and the radiologist will get an even clearer role in the treatment of the patient.”
Structured Reporting, a matter of time
“The problem with structured reporting in the Netherlands and actually the whole of Europe, is that there is not enough going on yet, says Herman Pieterman. “When the results from the first innovative hospitals to adopt structured reporting in their daily working is released, I expect that other hospitals will quickly follow suit. Hopefully structured reporting will become the norm as fast as the introduction of PACS: within a few year?”
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About het Erasmus MC
Erasmus MC is the largest University Medical Center in the Netherlands. Their primary goal is a healthy population. Nearly 13,000 employees devote themselves every day to providing outstanding care, facilitating world-class education and conducting pioneering research. These professionals are instrumental in developing expertise on health and illness. They link the latest scientific insights to practical treatments and prevention measures to provide maximum benefit to patients and to enable healthy people to stay healthy longer. Being visibly better and leading the way in the areas of complex, innovative and acute care by collaborating with others: these are key ambitions at Erasmus MC.
About G2 Speech
G2 Speech was founded in 1998, since then we have polished and perfected the art of providing digital dictation, speech recognition and workflow management solutions. We successfully provide our products in the UK, Ireland, Belgium and Holland. Within the UK we currently deliver solutions to over 35 major NHS Trusts.