Voice recognition in radiology reporting

Recent advances in computer hardware and software technology have improved voice recognition systems used for radiology reporting. We describe and analyze this technology and some of its costs as well as the prospects for using voice recognition systems in the transcription of radiology reports. Factors to be considered in choosing a system include language model, speech flow, vocabulary size, and methods of acoustic modeling.

Careful evaluation of individual radiology practice will permit proper introduction of voice recognition technology into mainstream clinical use. With this new technology, radiologists can use normal speech patterns to dictate while reviewing films. Also, this technology can use standard personal computers to reduce hardware costs to a level acceptable to radiology departments.