Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Spell Checker

I've often thought that the funniest and most inadequate part of AC is the spell checker. But today while dictating with Dragon the word "scoliosis" came up. It was not in the AC dictionary. But what was funny was the words that were in the AC dictionary other than scoliosis: calliopsis,colossi,solipssism,solipsist,scallions and conlisse.

It is very silly that AC's spell check is NOT medically sophisticated. And also that each client computer has to build up all the medical terms individually.

Scoliosis and scallions are pretty much the same thing.

But, I am with both of you. Stedman's was obviously not consulted, and it is so bad, I don't even use it. And, it should be able to save to a single file on the server.

But, Office can't do that that I am aware of.

My favorite so far is Lexapro=leapfrog

I especially like all of the abbreviations, letter combinations, and combination caps/lower case that are introduced by the medication list but show up repeatedly in spell check. Lawrence....got any ideas?

Hi All,

Dr. Jon, are we talking about the spell checker in the LW?

Just open any patient chart and click on F7.

Made at wintertree-software.com

Unfortunately, no Stedmans. I just don't use it.

If I am writing a long letter, I copy and paste it into Word, spell check it, then move it back. Ahh...the workarounds.

Bert, Is there no way to fix or update the spell checker with the next version of AC? The wintertree dictionary is fairly worthless but very amusing sometimes. There's never been a medical word that dragon doesn't know except for new meds.

These are two different questions? Is there a way to fix it? Sure. (speaking for AC of course). Will it be a priority and be put in? Doubtful. Especially, with PM being worked on.

Seems like you could get a list of all medical words and simply paste them into the userdic.tlx file in AC

I tried pasting a few of the TALLman drug names(ie: predNISONE) into the userdic.tlx file, and they aren't correctly recognized. The fault must be a bug in the spellchecker for mixed case words.

The spellchecker doesn't like hyphenated words and not real fond of the TALLman from what I can tell.

I did do a trial of pasting a list of medical words into the .tlx file and it does work. So I'm leaving them in there. Scoliosis works well now!

So Travis and John, help me to understand this: my userdic.tlx file can be opened and edited in Word. It only contains about 1200+ words which all seem to be medical words.
1. Where is the rest of the dictionary/spell checker?
2. Is there any reason not to do what Travis is suggesting, adding words directly to the file? (Avoiding mixed case and hyphenated words)
3. Is it worth considering a larger project? We could try to find a list of medical words elsewhere and import it, or we could post a list somewhere that we can all add to, creating a "mega list" to be shared?
4. I thought the spell checker was specific to each machine. Since the file is housed in AC on the server, these changes would hold across the whole network, right?

To make it worse, they have a medical dictionary, which can be licensed for multiple use inclusion for $199.00.

I mentioned it to JB once but I'm not sure he remembered. May be worth sending a lot of requests for it to the suggested update board and if they get enought it may hit their gameplan.

@Jon, I tried cutting and pasting from an free medical dictionary word listing, but I think they needed reformatting (word, then spacing then an i) for each word. I did not create a macro and gave up.

1. integrated into the program, probably on the individual computer.
2. see my other message
3. see my other message
4. changes have to be done at each computer. While there is a userdic.tlx file on the server, that is only for it's use. Each computer has it's own userdic.tlx file.

I can also vouch for the fact that adding a word to this text file doesn't cause it to be correctly recognized. I don't know why.

It's the spacing followed by an "i" . If that is done, it will work.

You could create a macro to automatically add spaces, "i" and go the the next word, repeat to end. Probably not all that difficult.

Then you would have to replace the file on all the computers.

I found this bit of information:

"The TLX file type is primarily associated with '[Various]' by Wintertree Software Inc.. Wintertree Software produces spelling check software libraries used in a variety of products (e.g., TextPad, UltraEdit, Jarte, etc.). The dictionaries used by these libraries use the .TLX file extension. If you need specialized dictionaries and the software you are using has licensed the Wintertree spell check library then you should be able to find and purchase the added dictionary on the Wintertree site if it's not offered by the software company producing the product you are using."

So, it appears that individual users could buy the $199 medical dictionary software that Wendell referenced and add it to their own system.

OK, for $1.99, I'm in! Oh, wait. I guess I read it wrong.

Looks like this topic resurfaces about once a year...twice before Wendell and Bert dug into this and learned some interesting things, but not necessarily enough to resolve the issue.

here

and

here.

I have not found that formatting to be necessary. I actually found a huge section of text files online of medical words, combined all of the text files into one and add those words to the tlx file without the space-i formatting. works like a dream.

hmm. not sure why. It did require logging off and logging back on to AC after updating the file.

I will try that, didn't work when I tried before, but if it does, that would be great. IF NOT, we may ask for a copy of your tlx file.

@Jon: Just buying the dictionary is not enough, this has to be intetrated into the program

Does anyone have an update or suggestion regarding the AC spell-checker, especially with respect to mixed-CASE and hyphenated words? It's getting quite annoying to see the same ?errors? over and over and over again.

Just about a year ago at the ACUC in Providence, Jon B acknowledged that the spell-checker needs to be improved, but nothing has been done as far as I can tell in V6.0.10 and 6.1.2.

A LOT of time is wasted continuously wading through the spell-check sequence as a note is completed. About half of the spell-check errors are my stupid mistakes and half are the program?s ?mistakes? by having inappropriate mixed-CASE medication names in the drug database (amLODIPine, predNISONE, etc) and by not allowing hyphenated words.

Is there a way to change the mixed-CASE drug names in the drug database, yet retaining their codified status?

Is there a way to ?allow? hyphenated words without having to perform tricks such as placing a space before and after each hyphen (eg, ?mid-May? would become ?mid - May,? ?ex-husband? would become ?ex ? husband?), which is not grammatically correct. It might work, however, to enter such changes into the userdic.tlx file so that we would not have to deal with them over and over again, although, again, not grammatically correct.

Likewise, I like ?KCl,? ?CaCO3? and ?mEq? rather than ?K Cl,? ?Ca CO3? and ?m Eq,? but AC does not allow for what seems to be the most commonly used formatting.

Finally, does anyone know about Travis? statement from 08/2011 ?I have not found that formatting to be necessary. I actually found a huge section of text files online of medical words, combined all of the text files into one and add those words to the tlx file without the space-i formatting. works like a dream.? Any ideas where one can find those text files?

Thanks for any advice.


Bob

I think I tried this again (not formatting) to no avail. Actually, I don't remember but still have the same problem.

You can, in theory allow hyphenated and mixed case. In reality it will still not understand or ignore them.

It seems that something always comes along and makes a third party app fix something. Before ePrescribing, the medication databases were horrible (unless you used some 4th party ones).

The spell checker is not very good and never will be as long as it is Wintertree or whatever it is.

Maybe one day MU will make all EMRs have spell checkers that must be 90% accurate, and we will end up with Stedman's.

It is very frustrating to have to build the whole dictionary word by word with 'add.' Also the fact that I have entered some words many times and the stupid spell checker does not remember them. I have EtOH in a lot of charts and it never remembers even though I say add.

Edit: I figured out a workaround for the last part. It is flagging EtOH and predNISONE because of "mixed case." Open "Options" in the spell check and turn of mixed case flagging and also you can make it not case-sensitive at all, and ignore all capitalized words like Dr. Winebibber.

I really dislike having to do these workarounds. However, I just spent about 20 minutes to 'educate' the spell checker. I went to a medical dictionary site, copied all the words to the clipboard, then pasted them into a sample letter. I clicked preview, then held down the return key over the add button. Now I have about 2000 words in my userdic file!

I changed the Options to ignore mixed case words, but this software is terrible. It does NOT remember this change in the options, and goes back by the next spell check!

Chris, I don't mean to rain on your parade, but in my experience the "Option" to turn off mixed case is not remembered and the problem will recur. Hopefully I am wrong about that...

Did you actually push the enter key 2000 times, or can you enter a bunch at once?

I didn't go back and read the whole thread, but I basically just don't use the spellchecker. It is just horrible.

It's too bad we can't get a deal with Stedman's, but I guess it just works with Word and Outlook. And VERY well I might add.

Bert, we are all holding our breath -- ver. 6.5 is coming! All prayers will be answered.

I found this list of medical words at
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/john_paul_...-custom-medical-spell-check-to-word.aspx

Have you been able to create a macro and add medical words in bulk to the AC dictionary?

Thanks

Still praying. I basically think you are just stuck with this spell check.

I found this list of medical words at
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/john_paul_...-custom-medical-spell-check-to-word.aspx

Used an auto mouse clicker and in process of automatically adding about 50k medical words

This would be with minimal effort or programming macros etc

Anil, adding medical words is helpful, but it does not address the "ignore mixed cap" bug which to me severely hobbles the spell checker.

Looks like you are both right. V6.5.5 has a spell checker in the letter writer which is apparently independent of the old one. That means that any letters you generate will be done with a functional spell checker. In fact, it may be worthwhile to use Anil's approach to increase the vocab there.
The bad news is that the spell check in the notewriter is unchanged.

This is just a horrible problem. I may have to take words such as EtOH out of all my notes because of this silly bug.

Why don't you just turn the spell checker off and check your spelling the old fashioned way?

I agree. I have never used the spell checker. It basically doesn't work so I just decided to not use it.

just a thought,
a few years ago, when i was charting by hand on paper, my spelling errors were hidden in the illegible writing.
Now, as i type to get the charting done, i notice that i will mispell as my fingers cruise over the keyboard.
this used to cause me distress, and i would edit the mispelled words; but, you know, at this time, I am for the most part the only one reading the notes, and i can understand my notes, and if words are mispelled, i am going with the flow.

I think I am pretty good at spelling, but we are all in a hurry with our charting. If you aren't moving fast, you are wasting extra hours at the office. I can almost guarantee, that checking the old fashioned way or not, you are making errors. Run the spell checker when you are done and see... spelling errors are unprofessional in this day and age.

Anil, did you get this to work? What kind of auto-checker did you use?

Yes much improved.
auto clicker used Auto Clicker by Shocker
http://download.cnet.com/Auto-Clicker-by-Shocker/3000-2084_4-75742161.html?tag=mncol;1

I set timing option to 300 msec

I downloaded the dictionary and added test words to a field on a test chart and then used the spell checker.
Set the auto clicker on the area"Add word"

Have to stll set option to ignore mixed -cap word everytime I use the dictioanry still.