WHITEPAPER. Mobile Workforce Productivity Solutions. Streamline Field Reporting Workflow with Speech Recognition

Transcription

1 WHITEPAPER Mobile Workforce Productivity Solutions Streamline Field Reporting Workflow with Speech Recognition

2 GROWING DEMAND FOR MOBILE PRODUCTIVITY The total number of mobile workers will reach 1.2 billion by 2013, according to a recent study by industry analysts at International Data Corp. (IDC). Mobile workers will account for more than one-third (37.2 percent) of the global workforce. Given these projections, it s no wonder that driving mobile productivity is a top priority for today s organisations. Enterprises with large mobile workforces, many of which face increasing documentation demands and compliance requirements, need an easy, convenient and reliable way to capture detailed notes in the field. But when it comes to effective field reporting, information gathering is just the beginning. Many mobile professionals are also responsible for completing detailed documentation based on the information they collect in the field. Traditionally field workers have relied on handwritten notes that they type up on their home or office PC or send to in-house or outsourced services for transcription. Experience has shown, however, that these approaches present a number of significant drawbacks: Long Hours The tedious, time consuming process of typing up field notes can add hours to an already long work week and limits the number of field visits staff can complete each week. Quality Issues Jotting down handwritten notes on the fly leads to misplaced data, insufficient detail and incomplete reports. High Costs For budget constrained organisations, especially those in the public sector, using in-house transcriptionists or outsourcing transcription for as much 50 per hour can be cost prohibitive. As more decision makers look to improve customer centricity and expansion, as well as operational productivity and efficiency, they are spending most on mobility focused strategies to achieve the desired results. International Data Corporation (IDC) Service Impact In order to provide first rate service to clients and the community, mobile professionals need to spend more time out in the field and less time tied to a computer completing paperwork. As a result, businesses are exploring the many ways that mobile technology can be used to enhance communication, collaboration and productivity. The challenge lies in cost effectively selecting mobile tools that can be seamlessly incorporated across existing workflows, including field reporting and documentation. Page 1

3 ADDRESSING MOBILE WORKFORCE CHALLENGES WITH SPEECH RECOGNITION Following the success of popular speech recognition tools like Apple Siri for the iphone, organisations are increasingly exploring strategies to integrate automated speech recognition within their mobile business workflows including documentation and reporting processes. Today s high performing speech recognition solutions provide a faster and more efficient way to capture information in the field and incorporate it into reports, correspondence and back-end applications. Depending on budget and user preferences, mobile professionals can leverage speech recognition capabilities to capture information in a variety of ways using digital voice recorders, personal or company issued cell phones or smartphones or even tablet computers. Mobile dictation solutions provide a valuable productivity tool for mobile professionals across a wide range of industries including Health and Human Services case workers, insurance claims adjusters, financial advisors, building and health inspectors, patrol officers and detectives and other mobile professionals. Despite the varied workflows in place across these industries, the advantages of speech recognition technology for the mobile workforce remain the same: Increased Productivity: Complete field reports and other documents quickly and easily to meet regulatory demands. By reducing the time required for documentation, mobile staff can focus on field work instead of worrying about typing, spelling and the administrative details of paperwork. Enhanced Creativity and Detail: Capture thoughts anywhere, anytime while details are fresh. Mobile staff can communicate naturally using conversational speech. The resulting reports contain more of the essential details needed simply because talking is faster and easier than typing. Reduced Costs: Speech solutions can eliminate the need for outsourced transcription or enable in-house administrative staff to focus on more productive tasks. A number of speech based mobile solutions are available to meet the broad range of budgets, user preferences, IT strategies and infrastructure requirements across industries. All are based on the award winning Dragon speech recognition software and customised to meet the needs of the mobile enterprise. Mobile speech solutions include the following: Recording Devices with Automatic Transcription: Capture detailed notes in the field using a recording device, such as a digital voice recorder or iphone, then use Dragon speech recognition software to transcribe the audio files into text that can be placed in report templates or directly within document management applications. Phone-Based Transcription Service: Use a phone service to dictate report content and case notes just as if you were leaving a voice message. The audio file from each phone call is transcribed by Dragon speech recognition into accurate text. Speech-Enabled Mobile Hardware: Complete documentation and reports in the field by using Dragon speech recognition on tablets or netbook computers. To experience optimal productivity gains and maximise return on investment, explore each option as detailed below, then select the best fit for your business workflow. Page 2

4 RECORDING DEVICES WITH AUTOMATIC TRANSCRIPTION Mobile professionals spend their workdays on the road traveling from location to location to conduct business. In many industries, these professionals have seen their workloads increase sharply due to budget cuts and greater demand for services. With Dragon speech recognition software, mobile professionals can keep up with paperwork from virtually any location by simply dictating into any Nuance certified digital voice recorder for automatic transcription when they return to their PC. This approach allows field professionals to use formerly unproductive time to dictate notes, reports and other documents safely and accurately. As a result, they are able to handle more clients and deliver better service without putting themselves or their organisation at risk of noncompliance. Using Dragon with a digital voice recorder is simple and straightforward. After dictating notes into the digital voice recorder and returning to their laptop or desktop PC, mobile professionals simply transfer the audio files from the device to their PC. Although file transfer methods vary, many devices simply plug directly into the USB port of a computer and let users drag and drop audio files from the device directly to their PC. Supported audio formats include:.wav,.vox, mp3,.wma,.sri and.wma files. The administrator can choose where Dragon will transcribe the text, such as inside a Microsoft Word document or within a specific field within back end applications such as CRM, case management, claims management and incident tracking systems. Delivering flexibility, convenience and efficiency, use of Dragon with a digital voice recorder can drive new levels of productivity and service at organisations with heavy field reporting demands. The Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey (Q4 2011) revealed that 24 percent of 3,982 information workers in companies across the globe with 20 or more employees use smartphones that run the Apple ios operating system - further evidence of Apple s growing presence in business enterprises. Forrester Research Reduce Hardware Expenses About 25% of information workers today are already using their iphone for work. Why not tap into this productivity tool? For organisations that don t have existing recorder hardware and/or don t need the advanced capabilities (and expense!) of high end recording devices, another option is to use an existing device, such as an Apple iphone or ipod touch, as a voice recorder for capturing notes in the field. Dragon Recorder, a free Nuance application on the Apple ios app store, offers convenient mobile dictation capabilities while eliminating the need for field workers to carry more than one device. Used in conjunction with Dragon speech recognition solutions for the PC or Mac, Dragon Recorder is a practical and cost effective solution that cuts down on IT hardware expenses associated with digital voice recorder purchases while seamlessly supporting the mobile documentation workflow. Page 3

5 With Dragon Recorder, mobile professionals can use their existing fourth generation iphone or ipod Touch whether personally owned or company issued to dictate text at anytime, from anywhere and capture highquality audio recordings in.wav format. Audio file size is limited only by the available memory in the device. Users can play back, fast forward, rewind and append to their recordings as necessary. It s fast and easy to transfer the audio files from their mobile device to their PC or Mac, since the files can be transferred via WiFi, requiring no wires or additional hardware and software. Dragon speech recognition software can then be used to produce an accurate written transcript of their field dictation, eliminating the need for typing or timeconsuming audio transcription. If desired, you can also use the app s Options view to specify a prefix which will then be automatically included in the file names. PHONE BASED TRANSCRIPTION SERVICE For organisations that lack the budget to equip mobile professionals with digital voice recorders or have security concerns tied to employee use of personal devices in the workplace, Voice Report offers an easy, convenient and reliable way to capture detailed notes in the field. Powered by the award winning Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition engine, this phone based transcription service increases productivity and report quality for field based staff by transforming any mobile or landline phone into a high quality dictation device. With Voice Report, there s no need for mobile workers to master new software or purchase new hardware. Users simply call into an 800 number from anywhere, at any time using a cell phone or any available landline, dictate their notes and receive the transcribed text with rapid turnaround. Voice Report uses the Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition engine to transcribe the audio from the incoming phone call into text. The transcription text file is then posted within a pre-specified timeframe (typically ranging from minutes to hours) to the user s Voice Report In box. Since Voice Report includes the original audio file associated with each transcription, users can play back the original dictation while reviewing the text and make corrections as needed. Once the transcription is saved, it s easy to incorporate that text into , Microsoft Word documents or back end applications for faster completion of paperwork. SPEECH ENABLED MOBILE HARDWARE Across a range of industries, organisations are equipping field staff with tablet PCs and netbooks to provide integrated computing, communications and application access in a highly portable device. Factors like increased processing power, growing storage capacity, IT consumerisation and cloud computing are expected to accelerate the adoption of tablet PCs moving forward. In fact, industry analysts at IDC forecast 2012 tablet PC shipments to reach 63.3 million units. As tablet PCs price/performance ratio continues to increase, Digitimes Research estimates that tablet PC shipments will reach 170 million units in 2014, a volume that will account for about 70 percent of total notebook shipments. Page 4

6 For organisations currently equipping staff with netbooks or who are planning to purchase tablets moving forward, Dragon can help drive hardware usability and maximise your tablet hardward investment. Dragon enables mobile professionals to dictate documents, send , search the Web and command and control their devices entirely by voice for new levels of mobile productivity, documentation efficiency and corporate cost savings. Dragon speech recognition software enables mobile professionals to create dictate note and create documents three times faster than typing with up to 99% recognition accuracy using their tablet or netbook PC. Field staff use their voice to dictate, edit and control applications like Microsoft World, Core! WordPerfect, Microsoft Excel, or Microsoft Outlook, as well as industry specific software programs like CRM, case management, claims management and incident tracking systems. Users can speak simple voice commands to create files, send , schedule meetings, open and close applications, save documents and even search the web on their tablets or netbooks faster than ever before. Support for custom vocabularies that include organisation or industry specific terminology and time saving macros for filling out forms, inserting frequently used text or graphics, or automating processes further speed and ease the documentation workflow for optimal mobile professional productivity. CREATE CUSTOM SOLUTION Some organisations prefer to create customised dictation and transcription workflow systems designed to meet their field staffs unique reporting processes and requirements. The Dragon SDK is used by developers and integrators to add speech recognitions capabilities into in-house and commercial applications. This toolkit, which enables everything from free text dictation to command and control functionality, can be deployed as part of a server or client based solution. The Dragon SDK Client edition includes everything needed to add cutting edge speech recognition technology to any Windows based application. The tools, libraries and ActiveX components for the SDK make it possible to integrate Dragon speech recognition capabilities into any Windows application without using the Dragon NaturallySpeaking user interface. With the Dragon SDK, developers can quickly and easily create speech-aware applications from scratch or add speech recognition to existing applications. The Dragon speech engine allows end-users to enter, edit and correct text by voice, as well as command and control the application by voice. The Dragon SDK Server edition provides a set of tools and interfaces to help software developers successfully build and integrate automated speech recognition into dictation and transcription workflow systems. It is specifically designed for integration into solutions that require speech recognition to run in the background without any interactive dictation or self editing by users. Back end speech recognition enables the batch processing of recorded speech from a range of devices, including digital recorders, PDAs, tablet PCs and telephone dictation systems. Although the Dragon SDK is not a transcription workflow in itself, it can be integrated within existing systems to automate transcription, thereby increasing productivity and reducing costs. Page 5

7 MOBILE PRODUCTIVITY SOLUTION ROI: RESULTS THAT SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES Mobile productivity tools, including mobile dictation solutions, can deliver significant return on investment to organisations with large field workforces including Health and Human Services, insurance, public safety and financial services. Organisations that purchase mobile dictation and documentation workflow solutions powered by Dragon speech recognition yield impressive ROI results in as little as one year.these organisations realise improved productivity and ROI almost immediately because their Dragon based mobile productivity solutions deliver: Ease of use, allowing most users to be up and running in less than 15 minutes, leading to high adoption rates with minimal training and support costs. Time savings by enabling users to create reports and other case documentation three times faster than with keyboard and mouse alone. Up to 99% accuracy out of the gate, letting users quickly create accurate, detailed reports with no spelling errors. Ability to streamline the mobile documentation workflow without changing current business processes, existing back end applications or deployed information systems. Counselors at Youth Villages, a private non profit organisation dedicated to helping children with serious emotional and behavioural problems and their families live successfully, have reduced documentation completion time by 55 percent using Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional with digital voice recorders. Youth Villages counselors dictate notes into a digital voice recorder in the field and Dragon automatically transcribes those notes when they connect to their office PCs. Voice shortcuts and custom voice commands further speed and simplify the documentation process. This mobile productivity solution has helped Youth Villages to increase counselor retention by helping them gain control over paperwork. When the benefits of Dragon based mobile productivity solutions are multiplied across dozens, hundreds or even thousands of professionals within an organisation s mobile workforce, the cost savings and productivity gains add up quickly for bottom line results. Counselors at Youth Villages, a non profit children and family services organisation, have reduced documentation completion time by 55% using Dragon NaturallySpeaking with digital voice recorders. Counselors dictate notes in the field and Dragon automatically transcribes these notes when they connect to their office PCs. Nuance, the Nuance logo, Dragon and NaturallySpeaking are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners. Page 6