Time-saving is often the biggest promise of replacing slow transcription with smart speech recognition—and it’s not a unique claim. With an audience of overworked healthcare professionals, almost every new technology claims to drastically reduce admin time, but working faster isn’t where the real value lies.
If every healthcare professional worked faster, we’d begin to make progress on backlogs, waiting lists and bed shortages. However, this is a drop in the ocean given the chronic understaffing the NHS is facing—and the danger of speed is that it undermines the quality of care delivered. At the same time, the hours saved every day are only important if that time can be spent wisely—to listen, think carefully, and safeguard positive patient outcomes.
Speech recognition can save healthcare professionals up to an hour every single day. But what really matters is the way in which this time is repurposed to improve outcomes.
The persistent barrier of bureaucracy
There are few jobs without a seemingly endless amount of bureaucracy but, in healthcare, the stakes are higher. When you spend excess time on transcription and moving pieces of data around patient records, this is all time taken away from skilled, important work.
According to a survey from staffing app Florence, 20% of NHS and social care managers say they spend 7-8 hours on admin every day. Around 40% said this impacts patients with 30% naming documentation and record keeping specifically. Crucially, 35% feel that outdated technology causes more time wasting.
In this context, it’s only natural that many NHS trusts and private healthcare providers are turning their attention to new technology that claims to reduce admin time. However, these headline time savings aren’t always what they claim to be.
The reality of time savings and measurable value
When comparing technologies, it’s tempting to imagine a direct correlation between time and money savings. We’ve previously written about hidden costs and the challenge of measuring value but even the promise of an hour saved per person, per day, must be understood in its proper context.
A technology like speech recognition helps users reclaim an hour every day, on average. So where is this time currently being spent? With some solutions, it’s not actually time saved—it’s time that’s just moved to checking for accuracy as well as other tedious admin tasks.
From the outset, it’s easy for time savings to be displaced onto training and adoption. Unwieldy solutions may require extensive face-to-face training. In many cases, this significantly reduces the real-world time-saving you can expect. At the same time, ongoing training and support can quickly undermine efforts to work faster and more flexibly. If a user must wait for speech recognition dictionaries to be manually updated every time a new drug name appears, there’s a risk that the user will be working more slowly than ever before.
By automating transcription and documentation tasks, clinicians can save valuable time that can be redirected toward patient care. This reduces work-related stress, improves work-life balance, and influences outcomes in three key ways:
#1 More Time for Patient-Centric Care: With less admin, clinicians have more time to focus on their primary responsibility—providing patient care. This extra time at the bedside allows for better communication, addressing patient concerns, and building stronger patient-clinician relationships.
#2 Timely and Accurate Diagnoses: Accurate and comprehensive documentation supports better-informed patient-care planning, improved medication management and less error prone decision-making. When clinicians have access to detailed timely patient records, they’re able to make more accurate diagnoses and develop safer, effective, treatment plans.
#3 Enhanced Patient Satisfaction: Patients appreciate the convenience and efficiency of prompt and accurate clinical documentation and are more likely to adhere to their treatment plans and follow-up requirements. This in turn contributes to more efficient and timely patient journeys and ultimately to better care outcomes.
Similarly, a new way to capture clinical records, reports and notes is only effective if it’s closely connected to other clinical systems, reducing the risk of errors associated with manual data entry or with data (miss)-routing by systems that don’t integrate with each other. While users might be able to capture notes up to four times faster with speech compared with manual typing, or using an outsourced transcription provider, this may be limited to a given interface. It’s vital that the information captured is right first time, before it is securely sent to wherever it needs to be—from/to patient records, healthcare colleagues, or patients.
How Augnito Spectra turns time into value
Augnito Spectra delivers over 99% accurate medical speech recognition to where it’s needed. An easy-to-use, AI-powered, cloud-hosted platform that saves time compared to manual typing or transcription. What makes it unique is the way it then safeguards time savings so they can be spent improving patient outcomes.
With Augnito Spectra, users can dictate notes and reports directly into the clinical record system from any device. Data is seamlessly and securely routed to other systems as soon as it’s ready, rather than it being delayed due to manual repetitive re-entry. All with unmatched accuracy for any English accent or dialect, with no need for lengthy voice training, so every user can maximise their time savings.
Augnito Spectra is also backed by the service and support that only comes from a team with over two decades experience in delivering transcription services to the NHS. From ongoing product updates to in-app help, a guided tour, and always-available support, Augnito ensures that time isn’t just saved on digital transcription—it’s also saved every time a new feature is used or help is needed.
Learn more about Augnito
See how Augnito Spectra creates compounding time savings across every part of your daily routine. Request a demo to try Augnito Spectra for 7 days and see the benefits for yourself.
From GP surgeries to hospitals, across every department and discipline, the NHS continues to be in crisis. Backlogs aren’t getting smaller, digital transformation is slow, and waiting lists are perpetually increasing. Despite this, Trusts are reluctant to invest in smarter, faster, more flexible ways of working – and it’s easy to see why.
Historically, Trusts have been burned by technology that creates seemingly endless costs without delivering real, measurable value. What appears to be a cost-effective choice now can all-too-often spiral out of control and cost significantly more than expected. While initial investment or subscription fees are within the budget, the expense of implementation, training, and managing adoption undermine the promised value of the software or hardware.
These hidden costs are sadly common and, in some cases, woven into the business model of technology providers. But the true price isn’t just financial – it’s in how these costs affect patients.
What are the potential hidden costs of speech recognition?
Any on-premise technology comes with inevitable hidden costs. These unavoidable expenses may include infrastructure and IT changes, manual implementation and testing, procuring new devices, and ongoing management and maintenance costs, whether they involve your own IT teams or an external provider. Quickly, the per-user licence fee becomes just one part of your overall costs.
In theory, cloud-hosted technology should mark an end to hidden costs. However, the reality of this is largely dependent on the specifics of your chosen solution.
Frequently, cloud software will still require specific equipment. In the case of speech recognition, this could include specific microphones or headsets. Some providers also charge implementation and training fees in addition to your licensing costs. Even if a provider doesn’t charge these fees, you may need to invest in compatible hardware – many solutions are restricted to certain platforms and operating systems.
Finally, usability and intuitiveness play an important role in the cost of your solution. If a speech recognition solution is difficult to use, constantly inaccurate, and frustrating for your users, this creates a very real financial cost in terms of lost productivity, stressed medical professionals, and a negative impact on your patients. In part, these are the financial consequences of a ‘top down’ solution – one where the benefits to your users aren’t clear or desired, so onboarding and widespread adoption take months or even years.
How hidden costs affect practitioners and patients
The appeal of medical speech recognition is simple: improve the workload and daily routine of clinicians to improve the experience of patients.
The way people capture notes is a prime area for reinvention – and one where the benefits can be numerous. Manually typing reports, or waiting for slow secretarial manual transcription adds time to the patient journey. Checking transcription and retyping into clinical systems can slow this journey even further. The amount of time potentially wasted directly correlates to the frustration of medical professionals, the size of the backlog, and the outcomes patients can expect.
Crucially, hidden costs and complexities directly affect patients. The HSJ recently reported a Trust’s admission that ‘patients suffered harm’ due to the huge follow-ups backlog. Meanwhile, data from The Telegraph shows the number of patients waiting to start treatment in England is 7.7 million and growing. Trusts need an urgent intervention and change to ways of working and reporting. A slow, expensive implementation process only creates yet another delay – another drain on resources that takes away from positively affecting patient outcomes.
Medical speech recognition with no hidden costs
In the most objective terms, Augnito Spectra is cloud-hosted, voice-driven AI speech recognition with no hidden costs. Augnito Spectra runs on your existing desktops, tablets, smartphones and MacOS devices. It’s implemented fast with no need for on-premise infrastructure nor IT changes. And our emphasis on ease of use removes the hard-to-estimate cost of training and driving adoption. Users simply take a guided demonstration or click the solution’s own Product Tour button and get started straight away on any device they want.
At the same time, Augnito Spectra is designed to keep costs down over time. With over 99.9% accuracy for any accent and many medical specialities, Augnito eliminates the hidden costs of checking and proofing reports. And with a voice-driven AI engine, Augnito continually evolves – whether you’re adding new words like new drug names, or receiving free, constant updates as we introduce new features. You can see some of our latest updates in this short video.
Augnito Spectra delivers industry leading speech/voice recognition without hidden costs – and, as a cost-effective, intuitive to use, and accurate option, the benefits are easy to see.
Learn more about Augnito
See how Augnito Spectra is already delivering transformational value – with no hidden costs – for medical professionals across the UK. Request a demo to try Augnito Spectra for 7 days and see the benefits for yourself.
In healthcare, new technology always seems to be promising a faster, smarter, better way of working. Solutions claim they’ll save you time and remove your stress, all while improving outcomes for patients and making their journeys more seamless. But those promises all need to be balanced against a simple, more pragmatic reality: budgets are always limited in the healthcare ‘business’.
Recently, the business of healthcare has been in the spotlight. With rising costs and widespread strikes for NHS workers with more on the horizon, there’s more pressure than ever to spend money effectively. Crucially, this doesn’t mean ceasing all spending. It means targeting your budget where the impact – on healthcare professionals, patients, and outcomes – will be biggest and where the value will be most effective.
With the NHS in crisis, now is the time for change: from overworked professionals burdened by manual reporting to a more agile, flexible way of working. And that transformation doesn’t have to mean huge investment, changes to your IT infrastructure, or expensive training.
The demands on healthcare have intensified
Waiting lists are increasing, hospital bed capacities are shrinking and, according to data from the British Medical Association, the average GP is responsible for 17% more patients on average compared to 2015. Accelerated by the pandemic, the healthcare needs of the UK have dramatically shifted in the past few years. It’s only natural, then, that the way healthcare professionals work needs to shift too.
However, healthcare in general is reluctant to invest in new technology. In a recent study by BT, 49% of NHS staff said the standard of technology at work was a source of stress. But while 29% strongly agree that innovation is hamstrung by a lack of funding, 37% identified cultural resistance to change as a significant barrier.
With this in mind, understanding the true value of new technology is key. The only way to overcome cultural resistance is with an objective approach – one that pits costs and price against value, reconciling the expense of a given technology with the impact on staff and patients.
Measuring the price and cost of AI-enhanced speech recognition
The healthcare industry has generally been willing to invest in AI, but Deloitte identifies the need to measure return on investment as key to continued transformation. AI-enhanced speech/voice recognition (instant digital transcription) gives users a faster, more flexible way to report and capture notes, including direct dictation into existing clinical workflows and applications. This has the potential to deliver a measurable return by saving a considerable amount of time and empowering staff to work efficiently – without compromising accuracy.
Augnito Spectra, our clinical speech recognition software, costs £576 (including VAT) per user, per year. With an average of 260 working days, that’s just £2.22 per day. Given that Augnito Spectra saves on average one hour a day – an hour that brings with it an implied cost – that’s a considerable return on investment. At the same time, Augnito has a positive impact on overworked users, improving not only performance and effectiveness but engagement, and retention. Compared to the costs of missed days due to stress or, worse, having to find someone new when people reach their limit and leave healthcare, Augnito is a significant saving.
For a few pounds per day, Trusts can empower their clinical professionals to work at their best. And that ultimately enables better healthcare outcomes for clinicians and medical staff and for patients – the most valuable output of all.
A speech recognition solution designed to create value
£2.22 per user, per day. That’s less than a pack of Nurofen (and other brands) to fend off the headache of slow, time-consuming reporting. It’s even less than a box of plasters to patch over the workload problem until people leave the healthcare sector.
Augnito Spectra also goes further to create value for your clinical staff and organisation. Designed to go wherever your people do, it includes:
• Mobile speech recognition on iOS or Android devices
• Seamless cloud-based notes, available on any device
• MacOS, Windows and web browser access
• Support for remote workers and sharing reports with different clinical systems
Learn more about Augnito
See how Augnito Spectra is already delivering transformational benefits – and measurable value – for medical professionals across the UK. Request a demo to try Augnito Spectra for 7 days and see the benefits for yourself.
Any discussion of healthcare is tied to the seemingly perennial discussion of waiting lists. Patients are waiting longer than they should have to for the treatment they need – and this is nothing new. What’s different, particularly in mental health services and integrated/community care, is the scale and severity of the problem.
NHS England currently publishes waiting time data for talking therapies, young people with an eating disorder, and early intervention in psychosis. Waiting lists across all these areas continue to grow. However, the real scale of the issue is likely to be under-reported. So-called hidden waiting lists between referral and second appointment cause around 12% of mental health cases to wait longer than six months. Demand outpaces the resources available – and adding more resources in terms of people, expertise, and technology will be a long, arduous process.
The answer isn’t in waiting for the resources to come, or leaving already strained emergency services to pick up the slack. There’s a driving, urgent need for efficiency – and doing more with the resources that are at hand and already available.
The importance of efficiency and technology adoption
The reality of mental health means that comprehensive notes are key to good patient outcomes. Cases are often complex and accurate information needs to be shared across mental health professionals (MHPs) and integrated/community care providers. When it comes to detailed reporting, more is always more.
However, this reporting burden is a significant drain on resources – namely, the people who are doing the reporting. Transforming the way mental health services are provided – and the experience of patients – is only possible when these day-to-day processes are faster and more flexible, without compromising on accuracy or completeness.
Technology has a role to play. A more digital approach to reporting helps to keep records safe, while potentially streamlining how MHPs work and increasing their agility.
Similar approaches have already been taken in areas like access to primary care, with mixed success. While patient access can be improved through initiatives like digital phone systems, online messaging and modern triage, the reality rarely meets the potential. An NHSE survey, reported by the Health Service Journal, estimates that just 10-15% of GP practices are using all three access tools.
Even where the most appropriate technology has been identified and recommended by NHS England, there is a significant gap in adoption.
Taking an MHP-centric approach to change
Conventionally, new technology in healthcare (in the form of computer hardware, digitalization, IT systems, cloud-computing, patient data reporting and recording, PACS, clinical software applications, and artificial intelligence) has been driven from the top down. NHS Trusts, private hospitals and healthcare service leaders select and deploy what they hope users will adopt fully. The problem is that the real needs of users – in this case, mental health professionals (MHPs) – are a secondary consideration.
We believe a more effective approach is one where a chosen tech solution mirrors and supports the way users/people want to work, rather than asking them to adapt to the way solutions work. This is only possible when you take into account the diverse needs, preferences and reporting processes of those individuals, providing adequate training and support. Automating certain tasks is another powerful way to support those efficiency gains. And setting clear expectations can help to avoid an overwhelming amount of change. Beyond choosing technology that’s fit for purpose, considering all these factors ensures change is and smooth and successful.
Speech recognition is a technology designed to feel natural and easy to use. By definition, it is more intuitive than any manual input could ever be. As a result, speech recognition can play a vital role in driving the adoption of a vast range of new patient data-focussed technology, including PAS, HIS and EPR systems.
When patient data is manually transcribed from one system to another, or from hurried notes into a more structured digital format, the workload of mental health professionals is increased, not improved. At the same time, these manual processes increase the risk of errors, inaccuracies, and privacy breaches involving mishandled or misplaced files. Efficiency is lost.
Speech is significantly faster than typing and, consequently, the biggest benefits of speech recognition are unlocked when it is integrated into the clinical systems that healthcare professionals already use.
How Augnito empowers MHPs
Augnito is a cloud-hosted, AI-enhanced clinical speech recognition solution that can be used to integrate speech and dictation into existing clinical workflows and applications. By bringing speech to critical technologies like an EPR system, Augnito removes the friction of typing and its time drain on users, helping to improve the adoption of digital workflows.
With a comprehensive set of user options including a desktop, browser and mobile app, Augnito allows for diagnostic reports and patient notes to be dictated from anywhere. Augnito is also easy to deploy and integrate – with providers being able to integrate into their clinical systems in as little as 48 hours and on average around 10-12 weeks.
Finally, Augnito provides a strong return on investment, not just with competitive licensing costs, but the innate ability to increase adoption rates for other clinical systems. In this sense, Augnito doesn’t just deliver value by making intuitive speech recognition available – it actively drives more value from under-used clinical technology that healthcare organisations already have.
In the words of Scribetech’s Director of Global Expansion “We are not adapting the way humans communicate with computers, but adapting the way computers communicate with humans.”
Learn more about Augnito
In just 24 months, Augnito speech recognition technology has helped drive EPR adoption through its growing subscription list of 13,500+ medical professionals across 355 hospitals, NHS Trusts, and 24 reseller, integration and radiology partners in UK, USA, Canada, India, the Middle East and APAC. Request a demo to try Augnito Spectra to see how it can help you.
While technology like clinical speech recognition has the potential to support vital transformation for mental health services, making any lasting change takes careful consideration. Funding is limited, mental health professionals are already stretched, and change can be an intimidating undertaking.
In our last post, we highlighted the significant benefits of natural speech recognition in a mental health setting. From reducing reporting time to freeing up mental health professionals (MHPs) to focus on patients, not note taking, speech-driven tools can positively impact the way people work − and the way patients receive care. But workflow benefits alone don’t determine the success of new technology.
As mental health teams begin their journey of digital transformation, they need to consider a wide range of factors including ease of implementation, adoption, security and, of course, cost.
Ease of implementation
The real cost of new technology is rarely the out-of-the-box price. The NHS Long Term Plan continues to influence technology across healthcare, but many Trusts and mental health professionals find themselves using a mix of modern solutions and older, often unwieldy platforms. As a result, IT infrastructure isn’t always ready to support a new solution, regardless of its potential benefits.
A cloud-hosted, AI-enhanced clinical speech recognition solution like Augnito completely removes this complexity, delivering intuitive speech-to-text with no need for a complex on-site implementation and no infrastructure change. And with purpose-built dictionaries for MHPs vs. a third party add-on, and no need for time-consuming voice-profile training, it’s ready to use at a moment’s notice.
All with flexible per-user licensing, a simple annual fee, and ongoing updates and support included.
Driving adoption of natural speech recognition
If a solution helps a single mental health professional save at least 30 minutes every day, that’s significant. If it’s adopted by an entire team, each experiencing the same kind of impact on their workflow, this could positively impact the patient journey for thousands of people every year. The quality of clinical records can also be improved by increasing use and adoption of the EPR/EMR, and allowing for more detail to be captured – we can speak three times faster than we can type.
An effective plan for adoption starts with ease of use. Flexibility and interoperability are key. Augnito is available wherever mental health professionals need it, whether that’s on Windows, MacOS, smartphones or tablets. Additionally, through Augnito’s comprehensive SDK and API tools, speech-to-text capabilities can also be easily integrated into existing reporting systems, alongside any data captured via Augnito. In this way, it’s easy to make clinical speech recognition part of an existing workflow − as opposed to expecting an already strained workforce to make radical changes to how they capture information and report.
At the same time, early adopters can help drive adoption across the wider team. Augnito is designed to enable MHPs to focus on their patients with more eye contact and more time to listen. Beyond improving the patient journey, speech recognition improves the lives of the people who care for patients every day. These first-hand benefits are vital to maximising adoption.
Embedded security and privacy
As is the case with the entire healthcare system, security and privacy are vital considerations in mental health. This is particularly complex when it comes to cloud-hosted software and the question of how and where data is shared.
Augnito is HIPAA, GDPR, SOC2, ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus compliant, with data encryption deeply embedded into its design process with regular audits and penetration tests to monitor security posture. All UK data is anonymised and processed in the UK, subject to the aforementioned security standards.
In fact, speech recognition has a significant privacy benefit over written documentation and reports. With all information captured digitally, MHPs can reduce the risk of misplaced documents and the manual handling errors that most commonly lead to a data breach.
Making a targeted investment in better workflows
In mental health, investment has to be targeted appropriately and in the right way. In the aftermath of the pandemic and amid a cost-of-living crisis, the scope, scale and nature of mental health complaints are all changing. The one constant is the hard work of MHPs − and it’s here that any investment in change must begin.
Augnito influences patient journeys and outcomes by enabling mental health professionals (MHPs) to work more accurately, flexibly, and effectively. It’s an investment that, while small on a per-user basis, could dramatically improve the outlook for mental health teams and patients − nationwide.
Learn more about Augnito
Augnito is already impacting the patient journey through a growing list of UK radiologists and medical consultants. Request a demo and try Augnito Spectra for 7 days to see how it can help you.
Much like the entire healthcare system, mental health services in the NHS and wider community are facing unprecedented pressure. Rising demand, increased awareness, and stretched budgets make diagnosing and treating mental health conditions a considerable challenge.
It’s an urgent issue that affects everyone. Last year, mental health patients in Accident & Emergency departments waited more than 5.4 million hours. Vulnerable groups like pregnant women aren’t receiving the care they need—not because of a lack of funding, but because of overwhelmed workforces and chronic understaffing. And those people who do receive treatment are significantly less likely to be satisfied with their experience than those with physical conditions.
Technology like AI and speech recognition has the potential to raise standards of mental health care. For example, recent studies show how speech recognition could be used to detect the signs of depression. However, despite recent advances in AI and natural language processing, there’s just no substitute for the distinct, empathetic role of a mental health professional (MHP).
Mental health specialists routinely go above and beyond to capture the often lengthy context around a patient’s condition. It’s a significant drain on already exhausted medical professionals and Allied Health Professionals (AHPs), not just during the day, but out of hours and during valuable home time. It’s here that technology can be most impactful, not replacing professionals, but enabling them to work more flexibly and focus on what matters most: their patients and their personal time.
A flashpoint for mental health care
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted mental health for the worse, with numerous sacrifices made to combat the virus and widespread uncertainty. Society as a whole saw a groundswell in dormant or entirely new mental health conditions. Mental health professionals were faced with even more work—only completed thanks to their commitment/passion for their work, and a great deal of time and effort.
This mental health crisis led to what former Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid described as ‘a decade of change in just two years.’ This quote from a Mental Health Summit speech reflects both the rapid increase in mental health conditions—but also a rapid shift in priorities for the government.
Unfortunately, two years of rapid change can’t undo the damage of decades of underfunding. In January 2023, the UK government pledged £150 million to support urgent mental health care, but health and care providers are already dealing with chronic understaffing. Data from Mind shows that, as far back as 2013, four in ten mental health trusts had staffing levels below benchmarks. More recent reports from the British Medical Association show that the mental health workforce has had little growth in the decade since.
While more investment in mental health provision is welcome, it must be targeted appropriately—and applied consistently. Building highly qualified capacity takes time. Improving the mental health landscape will be a long, arduous process. Those patients suffering with mental health conditions can’t wait for Trusts to find, hire, and grow their resources and human expertise.
Investing in mental health professionals (MHPs)
Investment in patient-facing services will always be vital to transformation, but there’s also a significant opportunity to invest in the capacity that’s already there. This starts with understanding and supporting the overworked mental health teams on the frontlines of the patient experience.
Reported by the CQC, 45% of patients aren’t always given enough time to discuss their needs. This reflects a department under pressure—and that’s pressure that the right technology can alleviate.
The work of mental health professionals is notoriously complex. The role is wide and varied. And professionals need to be multiskilled in providing advice and counselling, behavioural management, and developing strategies for patients to manage their thoughts and emotions. Amid these considerable demands, unwieldy software and slow reporting processes negatively affect quality of care. This is a particularly big challenge in mental health, where collaboration across practitioners is so vital. In an effort to accurately capture the insights a colleague will need, it’s all too easy to overlook the needs of patients themselves.
How Augnito empowers mental health trusts
Developed in close partnership with medical professionals, Augnito delivers integrated, flexible speech recognition—and a more efficient, agile way of working. Mental health teams can switch to using Augnito’s designated mental health vocabulary, capturing all the vital clinical data naturally, descriptively, quickly, and accurately. This frees up time to focus on patients, not admin. More importantly, it reduces reporting that encroaches on home life—often the case at the end of the day when the MHP is finished.
Crucially, Augnito was built for the fast-moving, collaborative nature of healthcare. Patient notes can be captured on any device—Windows, MacOS, smartphone, or tablet—or directly in an existing clinical system. And a focus on security means information can be safely stored, fed into other systems, or securely shared with other teams across healthcare and social care as necessary.
Available in the cloud on a simple subscription basis, Augnito offers:
- Beyond 99% accuracy
- Support for any accent out-of-the-box
- No need for time-consuming voice training
- Faster reporting with average 5% efficiency gains
AI-powered speech recognition like Augnito won’t transform mental health provision itself. But it can transform how MHP’s work every day, enabling them to care for patients with more eye contact, more time to talk and listen, applying more attention to every step along the care journey to improved mental health.
Learn more about Augnito
Augnito is already impacting the patient journey through a growing list of UK reseller and integration partners. Request a demo to try Augnito Spectra for 7 days to see how it can help you.