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CyberTranscriber, a state-of-the-art speech recognition system, enables VNSNY's 2,100 field nurses to report clinical information from the field. A nurse can enter a patient's vital signs, clinical progress, and other pertinent data by simply speaking into a phone.
VNSNY decided to implement CyberTranscriber when nurses complained that they were wasting time waiting for free phone lines. Prior to the implementation of CyberTranscriber, VNSNY nurses called in to an Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) system and waited for a connection in order to speak to a medical transcriptionist or a case manager. At the time, VNS received about 700 phone calls a day and nurses were sometimes on hold for as long as 10 minutes, waiting to reach an available medical transcriptionist or case manager.
With CyberTranscriber, nurses simply have to call a toll-free number. When a nurse calls in, CyberTranscriber answers immediately. What's more, VNSNY's 2,100 nurses can make reports 24 hours a day. Nurses can call in updates at patients' homes, when traveling between homes, or after business hours.
CyberTranscriber uses prompts for each data field, which the nurse supplies by speaking or using the keypad as appropriate. The nurse's voice is transcribed using speech recognition, combined with keypad data, and sent by a secure e-mail over the Internet and automatically uploaded to the VNSNY clinical management mainframe database. VNSNY case managers edit the reports prior to communicating the information to the managed care organizations with which we work. The case manager can negotiate authorizations for additional patient services as well as report discharges.
CyberTranscriber is highly efficient because it reduces the need for staff to answer calls and take manual reports. And since the phone lines are always free, our nurses can be more productive. In addition, the CyberTranscriber system helps ensure that reports to managed care organizations are made on a timely basis, facilitating the billing process. Currently, 27% of VNSNY admissions are covered by managed care organizations.
The transcribed patient data is delivered via encrypted and password-protected e-mail, and automatically uploaded to the correct field within VNSNY's mainframe database, thereby eliminating the time and expense of a manual report.
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