Dragon Medical is recommended for doctors but is it absolutely necessary? The short answer is no. Or at least – it depends. While that might sound like a cop out, the answer does hinge on a few mitigating factors including your practice management software, repository of previous medical documents and your specialisation.
The Core Speech Engine is There
Dragon Professional Individual is a strong option for just about everyone and most industries. Going for the speech-to-text feature as a primary benefit, the only real difference between Professional and Medical is the vocabulary. Medical includes several highly specialised medical vocabularies. What you should know is that the Professional vocabulary is immense and already contains most of the terminology that will apply to your general usage as a medical professional.
While it may be missing a few terms or linked phrases, there’s nothing stopping you from adding these as custom entries yourself. The product is designed to mold to your work environment and it can with a bit of shoulder grease. This is why we tend to sell more Professional licenses to doctors, who realise that all Medical’s bells and whistles may not be entirely necessary with the right customisation.
Practice Management Software
Depending on where you’re based or which practice management software you’re using, you can get most things done with Dragon Professional rather than Medical. While Medical has a few powerful add-on features, the main selling point is that the product is designed to plug into most American practice management software programmes. Dragon Professional is able to allow users to dictate into most text field spaces and uses the dictation box to make it feasible when not fully compatible.
The problem is that some practice management software environments will actively prevent Professional from being even usable as a workaround. This ties medical professionals into buying the more expensive version of the software to make it usable within this important routine environment. For practice management software providers who have enabled interaction between their notes fields, things are typically easier to manage. While Dragon Professional may not be fully compatible with these programmes, it’s mostly usable. Consult your service provider about Dragon’s compatibility with their software. Cloud-based online environments can be a bit of a challenge, depending on your browser’s add-in applet.
Customisation for the Win
Customisation is an important aspect of incorporating any version of Dragon into your work. It requires using, correcting and adding to the vocabulary and custom command section in order to get the software used to the nuances of your voice and adapt to your specific requirements. This is why it’s handy to have your letters on standby. The software has a harvesting function that enables Dragon to pluck unknown words from your documents.
It harvests capitalised forms, new terminology and even drug names, making it easier for you to populate your custom vocabulary. Searching for medical terms in the vocabulary editor, you’ll be surprised to see just how much the Professional version already has stored away.
The Bottom Line
You don’t have to pay three times more for the Medical version. It is designed to plug into more practice management environments and has a specialised vocabulary but in most cases, you can get by without these extras. Rather augment your workflow system with additional training to become a power user and devices to further enhance your efficiency and report generation.
Contact us so we can advise you on how to get the best out of your Dragon, whether you’re opting to go with Dragon Medical or Dragon Professional Individual.