There are at least 5 versions of Dragon Medical software for North American English.
Dragon Medical Practice Edition (not called Release 11... but effectively it is Dragon Medical Release 11 if you count releases) This is the only product currently sold to private practices with 1-24 physicians. We do not offer up-to-date information on the other Dragon Medical products which include:
There are Dragon 360 products deployed in hospitals and clinics with over 25 physicians. We do not sell Dragon to these accounts. Before September 2011, Dragon Medical Enterprise, Dragon Medical and Dragon Medical Small Practice were delivered with multiple packaging, license, and maintenance options. Sale of these products ended in September 2011.
In some medical applications, use of Dragon NaturallySpeaking can be appropriate. These are typically non-clinical applications as may be encountered in research, patient communications, insurance, etc.
This was released in September 2011. For practices of 24 or fewer doctors, it is the follow-on to either Dragon Medical Enterprise, Dragon Medical, and Dragon Medical Small Practice.
Historically, some doctors have used the non-medical versions of Dragon since its inception in 1997. I've got customers that started then who still use Dragon Professional. So those products can be used for medical dictation. BUT--these doctors paid their dues, learned to have word lists, learned to quickly do vocabulary analysis upon new releases, and have learned the Dragon means of dictation.
Starting with Release 10 (August 2008), dictation with the non-Medical versions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking fails when dictating into many EMR's. Even if an EMR that you use for dictation works with Release 10 or DMPE, there is no guarantee that it will work with Release 11 or 12.
If using an EMR with these restrictions, then your choice will be Dragon Medical Practice Edition.
If you do not use an EMR and do not plan to be using an EMR, then you can do further analysis. Is your writing “medical” in style and vocabulary?
Dragon Medical Practice Edition includes multiple different medical vocabularies. While 70+ specialties are listed, these are mapped into approximately 15 different vocabularies. These include named vocabularies for radiology, pathology, cardiology, emergency medicine, ObGyn, General Medicine, general practice, neurology, oncology, pediatrics, gastroenterology, orthopedics, and mental health. Many other specialties (e.g. dentistry, dermatology, urology, etc.) have vocabulary included within these vocabularies. To see if your specialty is included, please visit Nuance's list here.
Are you part of a large organization? If so, we can help you create custom vocabularies that can be distributed to other users of Dragon Medical products. Alternately, contact us regarding other development methodologies whereby we can create custom commands that can be used with ANY version of NaturallySpeaking or with Dragon Medical.
topOnce a competitor to Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the IBM ViaVoice product is essentially defunct.
Microsoft has speech recognition included with Office-XP, Office-2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.
With Windows 7 and 8, many report good accuracy for ordinary prose. Some aspects of the program, such as web surfing, are very good. But the user interface lacks the refinement of NaturallySpeaking. Without a medical vocabulary, accuracy for clinical work is poor. Specialized vocabulary is available from at least one vendor, but in the last 5 years I've not seen a single doctor publically praise it.
Since this is "free" software, some use it to experiment and learn. For clinical reporting, it should still be considered experimental. One company, nVoq, seems to have products based on this that they are marketing to the medical community.
In 2012, this company seems to have expanded its product offerings to include specialized products that primarily support transcriptionists.
Dragon Dictate on the iPad and iPhone and various other apps have appeared since 2010. There is anecdotal evidence that these work well in isolated medical situations. We anticipate more medical products with this technology in 2013-2014.
Philips had continuous speech technology most often working with high-end software/hardware suppliers to embed their technology into other products. These were mainly aimed at speeding up the transcription process where one person dictates and another person reviews/edits/corrects the document. Nuance acquired these products.
We're also happy to discuss your needs with you to help ensure you get the products and accessories best suited for your particular needs.
If you are ready to purchase, Dragon Medical is available through our online store.