With seemingly endless pressure on bed stocks, waiting lists, and workloads, technology is often used by the NHS for its immediate benefits. With a mindset of problem solving, trusts and healthcare providers are looking for faster, more flexible ways to work now. But the always-changing nature of healthcare means any effective technology has to consider the long term.
Speech recognition and digital transcription platforms allow healthcare professionals to capture important information wherever and whenever they need to — without waiting for time-consuming transcription or updating records manually. But a solution that saves time and delivers results today, might not be fit for purpose as our relationship with patients — and their data — continues to change.
A look back across the history of patient data shows us that change is the only constant and the only effective technology is one that’s future-proofed and always improving.
A history of patient data in the UK
Patient data and records have been a key part of UK healthcare for over a century. As far back as 1911, GPs were required to keep written records for all working-age men, supporting the government’s compulsory health insurance scheme. These paper records were deeply embedded by the time the NHS was established – a single, self-contained resource that was easy to misplace, but also easy to secure and manage.
The digital revolution saw a similar overhaul of how patient data is stored and handled. While the first use of computers for record keeping in a GP surgery date back to 1970, the two decades since the millennium have seen rapid changes to expectations around data from government and patients alike.
The NHS began widely deploying electronic health records in 2005, investing in the digital infrastructure to store and share patient data across the country. Today, we’re all familiar with electronic patient record systems (EPRs) and their role as hubs of patient data.
This ongoing change creates new and emerging requirements for technology. At the advent of the NHS, the best record keeping platform was a strong filing cabinet with a lock. Now, healthcare professionals need robust, reliable software as well as intuitive, flexible ways of interacting with that software and capturing data.
The changing nature of patient records
While the means of accessing and storing patient data is always changing over time, the nature of those records is shifting too. 2015 saw the start of an NHS initiative to let patients access summary electronic medical records and, since 2022, almost all NHS patients have been able to see their data via the NHS app.
For the healthcare professionals capturing those notes, reports, and records, this creates new pressure. With potential scrutiny from patients, it’s now more important than ever that notes are clear, detailed, content-rich and free from confusing jargon. In general, this is making patient notes longer and more complex to write, intensifying the need for a fast-yet-accurate way to work. However, in the long run, this will overcome ambiguity and misinterpretation.
Speech recognition and voice-driven AI technology has an important role to play, enabling healthcare professionals to work up to four times faster and offset some of this growing complexity by simply dictating directly into the digitised patient record.
The future of patient data: digital, secure, compliant
Finally, the digitalisation of patient data creates new obligations around security and privacy. NHS Trusts and healthcare providers need to strike the balance between enabling access to data while strengthening resilience against data breaches, accidental disclosure, and cyber-attacks. As AI continues to develop and we unlock new ways to work with, and learn from patient data, these risks are set to intensify.
Augnito Spectra is built for the digital future of patient data. With 99.3% accurate, AI-powered real-time transcription, Augnito Spectra provides a digital way to capture notes and create reports simply by speaking: a natural, human way to interact without the need to type and, more specifically with no wait for manual transcription. With integration into your EPR system, data can be securely sent to wherever it needs to be, contained within the patient record in clear language for easy authorised recollection
At the same time, Augnito Spectra is always evolving, much like the way patient data is handled. As a cloud-hosted platform, Augnito Spectra is being constantly updated with the latest features — from interface changes to security enhancements, reducing clinical risk, streamlining, and adapting to the way healthcare professionals work.
Learn more about Augnito
See how Augnito Spectra delivers measurable benefits now while future-proofing the way you capture patient data. Request a demo and see the benefits for yourself.
Time-saving is often the biggest promise of replacing slow transcription with smart speech recognition—and it’s not a unique claim. With an audience of overworked healthcare professionals, almost every new technology claims to drastically reduce admin time, but working faster isn’t where the real value lies.
If every healthcare professional worked faster, we’d begin to make progress on backlogs, waiting lists and bed shortages. However, this is a drop in the ocean given the chronic understaffing the NHS is facing—and the danger of speed is that it undermines the quality of care delivered. At the same time, the hours saved every day are only important if that time can be spent wisely—to listen, think carefully, and safeguard positive patient outcomes.
Speech recognition can save healthcare professionals up to an hour every single day. But what really matters is the way in which this time is repurposed to improve outcomes.
The persistent barrier of bureaucracy
There are few jobs without a seemingly endless amount of bureaucracy but, in healthcare, the stakes are higher. When you spend excess time on transcription and moving pieces of data around patient records, this is all time taken away from skilled, important work.
According to a survey from staffing app Florence, 20% of NHS and social care managers say they spend 7-8 hours on admin every day. Around 40% said this impacts patients with 30% naming documentation and record keeping specifically. Crucially, 35% feel that outdated technology causes more time wasting.
In this context, it’s only natural that many NHS trusts and private healthcare providers are turning their attention to new technology that claims to reduce admin time. However, these headline time savings aren’t always what they claim to be.
The reality of time savings and measurable value
When comparing technologies, it’s tempting to imagine a direct correlation between time and money savings. We’ve previously written about hidden costs and the challenge of measuring value but even the promise of an hour saved per person, per day, must be understood in its proper context.
A technology like speech recognition helps users reclaim an hour every day, on average. So where is this time currently being spent? With some solutions, it’s not actually time saved—it’s time that’s just moved to checking for accuracy as well as other tedious admin tasks.
From the outset, it’s easy for time savings to be displaced onto training and adoption. Unwieldy solutions may require extensive face-to-face training. In many cases, this significantly reduces the real-world time-saving you can expect. At the same time, ongoing training and support can quickly undermine efforts to work faster and more flexibly. If a user must wait for speech recognition dictionaries to be manually updated every time a new drug name appears, there’s a risk that the user will be working more slowly than ever before.
By automating transcription and documentation tasks, clinicians can save valuable time that can be redirected toward patient care. This reduces work-related stress, improves work-life balance, and influences outcomes in three key ways:
#1 More Time for Patient-Centric Care: With less admin, clinicians have more time to focus on their primary responsibility—providing patient care. This extra time at the bedside allows for better communication, addressing patient concerns, and building stronger patient-clinician relationships.
#2 Timely and Accurate Diagnoses: Accurate and comprehensive documentation supports better-informed patient-care planning, improved medication management and less error prone decision-making. When clinicians have access to detailed timely patient records, they’re able to make more accurate diagnoses and develop safer, effective, treatment plans.
#3 Enhanced Patient Satisfaction: Patients appreciate the convenience and efficiency of prompt and accurate clinical documentation and are more likely to adhere to their treatment plans and follow-up requirements. This in turn contributes to more efficient and timely patient journeys and ultimately to better care outcomes.
Similarly, a new way to capture clinical records, reports and notes is only effective if it’s closely connected to other clinical systems, reducing the risk of errors associated with manual data entry or with data (miss)-routing by systems that don’t integrate with each other. While users might be able to capture notes up to four times faster with speech compared with manual typing, or using an outsourced transcription provider, this may be limited to a given interface. It’s vital that the information captured is right first time, before it is securely sent to wherever it needs to be—from/to patient records, healthcare colleagues, or patients.
How Augnito Spectra turns time into value
Augnito Spectra delivers over 99% accurate medical speech recognition to where it’s needed. An easy-to-use, AI-powered, cloud-hosted platform that saves time compared to manual typing or transcription. What makes it unique is the way it then safeguards time savings so they can be spent improving patient outcomes.
With Augnito Spectra, users can dictate notes and reports directly into the clinical record system from any device. Data is seamlessly and securely routed to other systems as soon as it’s ready, rather than it being delayed due to manual repetitive re-entry. All with unmatched accuracy for any English accent or dialect, with no need for lengthy voice training, so every user can maximise their time savings.
Augnito Spectra is also backed by the service and support that only comes from a team with over two decades experience in delivering transcription services to the NHS. From ongoing product updates to in-app help, a guided tour, and always-available support, Augnito ensures that time isn’t just saved on digital transcription—it’s also saved every time a new feature is used or help is needed.
Learn more about Augnito
See how Augnito Spectra creates compounding time savings across every part of your daily routine. Request a demo to try Augnito Spectra for 7 days and see the benefits for yourself.