The accuracy of radiology speech recognition reports in a multilingual South African teaching hospital
Date
2015-03
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BioMed Central
Abstract
Background: Speech recognition (SR) technology, the process whereby spoken words are converted to digital text,
has been used in radiology reporting since 1981. It was initially anticipated that SR would dominate radiology
reporting, with claims of up to 99% accuracy, reduced turnaround times and significant cost savings. However,
expectations have not yet been realised. The limited data available suggest SR reports have significantly higher
levels of inaccuracy than traditional dictation transcription (DT) reports, as well as incurring greater aggregate costs.
There has been little work on the clinical significance of such errors, however, and little is known of the impact of
reporter seniority on the generation of errors, or the influence of system familiarity on reducing error rates.
Furthermore, there have been conflicting findings on the accuracy of SR amongst users with English as first- and
second-language respectively.
Methods: The aim of the study was to compare the accuracy of SR and DT reports in a resource-limited setting.
The first 300 SR and the first 300 DT reports generated during March 2010 were retrieved from the hospital’s PACS,
and reviewed by a single observer. Text errors were identified, and then classified as either clinically significant or
insignificant based on their potential impact on patient management. In addition, a follow-up analysis was
conducted exactly 4 years later.
Results: Of the original 300 SR reports analysed, 25.6% contained errors, with 9.6% being clinically significant. Only
9.3% of the DT reports contained errors, 2.3% having potential clinical impact. Both the overall difference in SR and
DT error rates, and the difference in ‘clinically significant’ error rates (9.6% vs. 2.3%) were statistically significant. In
the follow-up study, the overall SR error rate was strikingly similar at 24.3%, 6% being clinically significant.
Radiologists with second-language English were more likely to generate reports containing errors, but level of
seniority had no bearing.
Conclusion: SR technology consistently increased inaccuracies in Tygerberg Hospital (TBH) radiology reports,
thereby potentially compromising patient care. Awareness of increased error rates in SR reports, particularly
amongst those transcribing in a second-language, is important for effective implementation of SR in a multilingual
healthcare environment.
Description
CITATION: Du Toit, J., Hattingh, R. & Pitcher, R. 2015. The accuracy of radiology speech recognition reports in a multilingual South African teaching hospital. BMC Medical Imaging, 15:8, doi:10.1186/s12880-015-0048-1.
The original publication is available at http://bmcmedimaging.biomedcentral.com
The original publication is available at http://bmcmedimaging.biomedcentral.com
Keywords
Speech perception, Medical errors -- Reporting, Radiology -- South Africa, Communication
Citation
Du Toit, J., Hattingh, R. & Pitcher, R. 2015. The accuracy of radiology speech recognition reports in a multilingual South African teaching hospital. BMC Medical Imaging, 15:8, doi:10.1186/s12880-015-0048-1.