Implementation of the First Region-Wide Speech Recognition System in the Italian Healthcare Sector

A new speech recognition-based document is being implemented in the 22 hospitals of Italy's healthcare service for the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. Radiologists and pathologists will be able to produce medical reports instantly from every workstation attached to the regional system.

Royal Philips Electronics (Best, The Netherlands) has developed the speech recognition-based document creation platform powered by SpeechMagic. Significantly adding to its deep experience in implementing large-scale healthcare speech recognition systems with this project, Philips and its Italian integration partner, Gruppo Soluzioni Tecnologiche (GST; Trento, Italy), have established SpeechMagic's presence in Europe.

The hospitals will be equipped with front-end speech recognition, which gives physicians total control over the production of medical reports. So-called "roaming profiles” facilitate the flexible deployment throughout the region by providing physicians with access to individual user and voice settings on every workstation, in every hospital. The backup and recovery system will be centralized in the region's capital Trieste for optimal data protection and reduced administration efforts.

"Allowing physicians to generate medical reports themselves will speed up the availability of accurate medical data,” said Robert Thornton, commercial director of Philips Speech Recognition Systems (Vienna, Austria). "Studies have shown that front-end speech recognition can improve report availability by up to 90%, reducing waiting times for physicians and patients alike.”

The project is headed by Insiel S.p.A (Trieste, Italy), a supplier of infrastructure and services. The GST company RECO Sistemi will provide the SpeechMagic-based dictation solution and work closely with a group of experts to develop a customized user interface. Philips and GST are also developing a new Italian speech recognition vocabulary (ConText) with specialized terminology for pathologists.

"This project is clear evidence of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia healthcare sector's commitment to increase the efficiency and accuracy of medical documentation for better quality of care. It comes as no surprise that the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, which has one of the highest densities of researchers in Europe, is the first in Italy to embark on such an innovative, future-oriented project,” said Marco Biraghi, CEO of Reco Sistemi and general manager of GST.

Philips' document creation platform SpeechMagic is installed at more than 8,000 professional sites in 45 nations.


Related Links:
Philips Speech Recognition Systems
Gruppo Soluzioni Tecnologiche
Insiel