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How many people use Dragon Medical with AC? I have a hard time justifying $2,000 when the EMR is easy to use and have templates. I do feel I could use Dragon to better complete the plan portion of the chart. I am slow with typing, sometimes, by the weekend the index fingers are hurting from the hunt and peck process. My partner had Dragon Pro from "Know Brainer" before Amazing Charts and used it for dictation of notes. She tried to incorporate it with AC when we first started about 8 years ago but Dragon did not work real well in this situation. Any help or hints on how well it works would be appreciated. Has anyone ever tried Dragon and decided against it?

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.

I have been using Dragon for almost 2 decades now and I find that the functionality is almost as important to me as my stethoscope. I had minimal learning curve switching to dictation in Amazing Charts versus stand-alone.The power of Dragon is its ability to have macros automate certain tasks. For example, I can have it close a chart and Bill 99213 with a single command. It is frustrating that Dragon does not sell a medical version for less, but it has proven cost-effective in my hands. Getting comfortable with the right microphone and playing around with it is critical. Amazing Charts has a few problems with Dragon for example the common word "in" changes the unit from centimeter to inch, annoying, but Amazing Charts has been aware of this bug for quite some time. My mid levels are all fluent with the use of Dragon along with Amazing Charts. Marlon

Doctor Mel and Marlon,

Great input. I too use Dragon but I know I have not unlocked its full potential.

Could you share any of your templates or macros?

I am embarrassed but I do not know how to attach a file, I have a .dat file with most of the AC commands that I use, I would love to give you my vocabulary but it also has patient names. I wish I could separate out just the drug names. Marlon

Can't imagine using AC without Dragon. Pricey, but worth it for the sanity you will keep. Make your own templates on the fly by copying your current ROS, PE, Plan, etc, stating "Open command browser" pasting into the field and assigning it a memorable name (be sure to train the command once). Be sure to check "plain text" before saving. I assign a prefix to each field P for physical text box, I for diagnosis, Plan for plan text box, etc. i.e.: Pwellchild, iphysical, PlanCDL. Strongly consider the 3-in-1 Tablemike microphone--leaves both hands free, picks up dictation from 1-2 feet away, and very accurate. (See avatar at left) Spent hundreds on other mikes until I figured this one out.
Dave

Thanks for the replies, still considering due to the cost but am feeling better that this will help speed up the charting process even more