Acceptance of Speech Recognition by Physicians: A Survey of Expectations, Experiences, and Social Influence

The present study has surveyed physician views and attitudes before and after the introduction of speech technology as a front end to an electronic medical record. At the hospital where the survey was made speech technology recently (2006-2007) replaced traditional dictation and subsequent secretarial transcription for all physicians in clinical departments. The aim of the survey was (i) to identify how attitudes and perceptions among physicians affected the acceptance and success of the speech recognition system and the new work procedures associated with it; and (ii) to assess the degree to which physicians' attitudes and expectations to the use of speech technology changed after actually using it. The survey was based on two questionnaires - one administered when the physicians were about to begin training with the speech recognition system and another, asking similar questions, when they had had some experience with the system. The survey data were supplemented with performance data from the speech recognition system. The results show that the surveyed physicians tended to report a more negative view of the system after having used it for some months than before. When judging the system retrospectively, physicians are approximately evenly divided between those who think it was a good idea to introduce speech recognition (33%), those who think it was not (31%) and those who are neutral (36%). In particular, the physicians felt that they spent much more time producing medical records than before, including time correcting the speech recognition, and that the overall quality of records had declined. Nevertheless, workflow improvements and the possibility to access the records immediately after dictation were almost unanimously appreciated. Physicians' affinity with the system seems to be quite dependent on their perception of the associated new work procedures.