Why voice recognition is the new competitive battleground in healthcare's digital transformation

It is common knowledge that the most significant burden for many caregivers is documenting and annotating clinical encounters in electronic health record systems; Voice recognition is one of many tools that can alleviate the problem and reduce clinician workloads today. Users of the leading voice-recognition tools acknowledge that the technology delivers better caregiver productivity. Dr. Lahr points out that even with leading technology providers for voice-based tools, a "person behind the curtain" often interprets the conversation and separates the clinical terminology from the overall conversation. Big tech firms and startups alike are keen to expand voice recognition capabilities, considering the significant potential for voice-enabled tools to improve productivity and transform patient experiences. While Oracle is not the first name that comes to mind when hospitals and health systems think of voice-recognition technology, its intent to bring voice-recognition technology to the Cerner platform to address clinical workloads is indicative of the perceived opportunity for voice technologies in healthcare. As mentioned earlier, separating the clinical terminology from other aspects of the conversation is a non-trivial challenge, implying that voice-recognition technology fits in well with some specialties but not others. That leaves us with the question of how patients are responding to voice-enabled tools in their healthcare encounters. At a broad level, voice-recognition technology's true potential lies in going beyond documentation and becoming an intelligent decision support tool through effective listening for clinical indicators and proactively supporting clinical decisions.