Latest BigHand Healthcare Edition leverages dictation, speech recognition and document technologies for the NHS

BigHand, the leading provider of digital dictation and speech recognition technology to the UK healthcare market, has launched BigHand for Healthcare version 3.5 which leverages the latest dictation, speech recognition and document technologies for the NHS.

Shiraz Austin, Director, ScribeTECH, who recently collaborated with BigHand at East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, commented: “BigHand for Healthcare is fast becoming one of the most sophisticated products available within the UK Healthcare market. As a customised and end-to-end digital dictation and clinical correspondence solution that replaces tape and paper based systems, Clinicians, Medical Secretaries and Service Level Managers can regain hours of lost time and eradicate inefficiencies. Users are provided with an intuitive, NHS-friendly interface enabling them to easily create, track, transcribe and manage staff workloads, as well as allowing them to leverage additional options such as Speech Recognition, Outsourcing or smartphone-based dictation.

"ScribeTECH is pleased to see the advanced workflow management and seamless integration of outsource services, which enables us to become part of the extended Trust team. With Trusts facing increasing cost pressures we are sure these ground breaking innovations will bring huge benefits to the NHS.”

New features within BigHand 3.5 edition include:

- Clinic Builder – “Send Profile dictations with a single click”. After extensive feedback from our NHS customers, Clinic Builder uses data from a third party clinical system to generate a list of pre-populated, profile dictations. Clinician’s then dictate letters against specific patients so each dictation is automatically titled and profiled with the correct information with a single click. This means dictations can be created quicker during clinic, speeding the process and improving patient information accuracy.

- Multi-Step Workflow –Trusts now have limitless and configurable workflow steps such as dictation, transcription, quality control, proof read, dispatch, print and send for electronic dispatch. Administrators can create these multi-step, branching workflows using an intuitive User Interface and all of the new data captured allows Trusts to identify exactly where in the process delays are actually occurring, allowing them to focus efforts where required.

- Advanced Profiling - Administrators can now make profile fields mandatory and for the profiling form to remember the most recently used manual entries, such as NHS Number, Patient ID and D.O.B, saving Clinician’s time with pre-populated fields.

- Speech Recognition Pre-Enrolment Tool – Helping to reduce any training barriers to adoption, BigHand’s Speech Recognition Pre-enrolment Tool can work even before the Clinician has interacted with the system. Their speech profiles can be trained using existing dictations and existing documents, resulting in a faster and more efficient way of Clinician’s training their voice profile. This also means Trusts can “pre-determine” which Clinicians’ will benefit most by comparing the accuracy of transcribed text, without the Clinician themselves even using the software.

- Integrations – BigHand’s suite of integrations has expanded to include:

o Oasis Patient Administration System (PAS) allows the Trust users to query patient information from within BigHand and generate documents incorporating the relevant patient demographics, either supplied manually by Clinic Builder or Advanced Profiling with the

o ScribeTECH outsourcing services allow for dictations to be sent for transcription by ScribeTECH and their status tracked. BigHand has collaborated closely with ScribeTECH at East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust recently to ensure our many years of NHS outsourcing and integration expertise were utilised in the design, this integration allows all dictations to be seamlessly integrated whenever they are typed.

James Kippenberger, Managing Director for UK Healthcare at BigHand commented: “Although the NHS is being squeezed, it is resulting in some very sensible and pragmatic changes to the way it produces and delivers documentation and correspondence. BigHand is committed to developing our product in a user oriented and customer driven fashion to help our NHS customers achieve all that is being asked of them. The features mentioned here are only the start of an otherwise much longer journey. Watch this space for even more functionality arriving from BigHand early in 2011. This is an exciting time for us, but more importantly, it is an exciting time for the increasing number of Trusts who are partnering with us to deliver what is needed.”

NHS Trusts who have already invested in BigHand technology include, The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, Birmingham & Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS Trust, The Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, Basildon & Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust and Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital.