Smartphone speech-to-text applications for communication with profoundly deaf patients

Area of Science:

• Medical communication
• Assistive technology

Background:

• Traditional communication methods like handwriting and typing are used for deaf patients in clinical settings.
• The need for efficient and accurate communication tools is critical in healthcare.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the feasibility of using smartphone speech recognition software for clinical communication with deaf patients.
• To compare the speed and accuracy of smartphone dictation against traditional writing and typing methods.

Main Methods:

• Thirty medical professionals (doctors and students) participated in the study.
• Participants were timed while writing, typing, and dictating a standard set of six post-operative consultation sentences.
• The accuracy and legibility of each communication method were assessed.

Main Results:

• Smartphone dictation was significantly faster (17.8 seconds) than writing (59.2 seconds) and typing (44 seconds) (p < 0.001).
• Speech recognition accuracy was slightly lower but improved with increased dictation time.
• Legibility was assessed, though specific results are not detailed in the abstract.

Conclusions:

• Smartphone dictation presents a viable and efficient alternative to handwriting and typing for clinical communication.
• Encouraging slower speech during dictation may enhance accuracy.
• Initial clinical use of this technology has shown positive outcomes.