Hi Chris,
I have been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking since 2004 and had been using it with Amazing Charts since 2012. As with anything, there is a learning curve. One of the main things to understand about speech recognition software such as DNS is that it only recognizes certain "fields", in other programs. What this means is that using DNS for some programs such as Microsoft Word, work well. For the most part, it works well with Amazing Charts, as long as you are using Dragon to dictate an open AC chart on your computer. Attempting to dictate remotely is trickier, because Dragon does not recognize fields that are not on the same computer. This means that it will not recognize capitalization and punctuation. Therefore, you must be careful to proofread. The way around this is to dictate as described in the next paragraph.
When you have a long dictation, such as a history of present illness, it can be useful to open the Dragon dictation box, dictate into it and then place your cursor in the Amazing Charts field that you wish to dictate into, and then state "transfer text." The text will then appear in the field. You can also dictate into Microsoft Word documents, and then cut and paste the dictation. I think that it goes much more quickly than trying to type into the field.
As you get familiar with Dragon, you can build templates that have text variables, that you can dictate into by saying "next variable." This way, one template can serve a variety of patients. You can set defaults for the normal exam.
Know Brainer software is a great addition, if you can figure out how to use it. They have great support.
An additional thought about dictating with DNS is that your note becomes more personal and descriptive. Each patient is individualized. I get very tired of reading the same canned text from other offices, which does not really tell me about the patient.
I hope that this is helpful to you. We have just scratched the surface.
