Digital Dictation: (back)

Digital dictation is a method of recording and editing the spoken word in real-time within a digital audio format. Digital dictation offers several advantages over traditional cassette tape based dictation:

The user can instantly rewind or fast forward to any point within the file to review or edit.
The random access ability of digital audio allows one to insert audio at any point without overwriting the following text.
Large dictation files can be shared with multiple typists.
Dictation files can be transmitted electronically, e.g. via WAN, LAN, e-mail or FTP.
Digital dictation provides the ability to prioritize work.
Sound is CD quality and can improve transcription accuracy and speed.
The interchange format for digital audio is WAV. However most digital diction systems use a lossy form of audio compression to minimize hard disk space.

In most cases, when someone uses digital dictation, their aim is to create a document or a record. The VeinSpec EMR system allows for the upload and maintenance of any voice file needed to accompany a patient's file. The actual transcription process of converting the digital audio to text can either be done directly inside of the patient's record (i.e. accessed by an in office transcriptionist, or accessed by an outside transcription service via a secure password protected channel), or done by an outside party and uploaded as a finished product directly into the patient's file. Either way, the audio record is always attached to the text, and stored indefinitely.