How to choose a Digital Dictation supplier – 10 key questions to ask

1. Is the solution integrated with the Trust’s Patient Administration System to reduce clerical error risks and realise time efficiencies?
2. Do they allow you to run a fully operational pilot first before committing?
3. Do they offer a fully integrated ‘end-to-end’ speech mic to GP solution using the same technology from only one supplier, so there are no integration issues?
4. Are you free to source your own Digital Dictation hardware, so you can get the best specification and price, and make changes in the future if necessary?
5. What impact will the new system have for clinicians, the hardest audience to win over? Does it have minimum impact on current working practices?
6. Is the technology tried and tested? Can you talk to previous users directly rather than just read testimonials?
7. Will you subsequently be able to use the same platform to upgrade to speech recognition capability?
8. Does the technology works with any PAS and any GP system, for future proofing?
9. Do they provide flexible, fully audited workflows for movement of the audio files and generated correspondence to support centralised transcription team working, classic ‘clinician to medical secretary’ working, and stand alone users?
10. Do they include rich Management Reporting software for the process, both for strategic and operational purposes?