– when they matter most

 

With growing waiting lists, strict government targets, and increased demand, everyone involved in diagnostics is under pressure to work faster. But efficiency and speed are also vital to improving the most important thing of all: patient outcomes.

In November 2022, NHS England announced a landmark move to speed up cancer diagnosis or all-clear for patients. For the first time, GPs across the country can access fast-track testing, with direct orders of CT scans, ultrasounds, and brain MRIs. Crucially, the availability of these tests extends to those patients whose symptoms fall outside the NICE guideline threshold for urgent referrals.

For patients, this reflects a continued effort from the NHS to accelerate pathways through the diagnosis to treatment. However, for already overloaded diagnostic teams, radiologists and pathologists, it heightens the need to transform – and accelerate – ways of working.

Early diagnosis creates better patient outcomes

According to Cancer Research UK, 4 in 10 cancer cases are diagnosed through an urgent suspected cancer referral. This creates a significant gap between the most urgent referrals and those patients with concerning symptoms who would experience a longer wait for screening.

Easier access to tests across the NHS is an important step towards better outcomes. But this also moves the potential bottleneck in diagnosis and treatment to radiologists and pathologists, now facing unprecedented demand.

More than ever, healthcare professionals need faster ways to report – without compromising accuracy and precision.

How speech recognition delivers speed, accuracy and quality

As an intuitive, natural way to create reports and transcribe information, speech recognition (SR) has the potential to dramatically accelerate how pathologists report. Compared to typing, speech is as much as five times faster.

At the same time, these speed and efficiency gains are only as meaningful as they are accurate. Increasingly, AI and machine learning mean SR can deliver accuracy beyond 99%, in any accent, with a language model developed for clinical terminology.

As a result, diagnostic teams can keep pace with the rest of the NHS as it continues its transformation to faster, more efficient and secure ways of working and delivering care.

How Augnito fast-tracks pathology workflows

The NHS is understandably focused on new ways to make frontline care and patient journeys faster. But these journeys are all interwoven – and ultimately limited – by the speed with which the departments involved in diagnosis can work.

Augnito was developed in partnership with healthcare professionals to make workflows faster and more flexible, while preserving accuracy and quality. With standalone applications or integrated into existing clinical systems, Augnito delivers the accuracy that patient outcomes depend on.

However, Augnito also empowers pathologists and radiologists to improve the way they work day-to-day. Creating reports is as easy as speaking, sharing information can be highly automated and secure, and our suite of platforms means professionals can report from anywhere.

It’s more than an alternative way to create the same reports. It’s a way to rethink how diagnosis works and dramatically improve patient care with a measurable impact on productivity and efficiency.

Finally, Augnito makes workflow transformation more available and accessible with a flexible, cost-effective approach to implementation and management. As a cloud-hosted technology, Augnito doesn’t require changes to infrastructure and IT. It’s easy to switch on and start using on any scale, with data security, compliance and management taken care of by our expert team.

Try a faster way of working

Augnito is already impacting the patient journey through our growing list of UK customers and partners. Request an evaluation version or try the Augnito app to see how you can start to benefit from faster reporting, efficient diagnostics and securely impacting the patient journey for a better continuum of care.

[London, 7 December 2022] – Supporting a widespread remit to simplify and improve patient journeys, next-gen speech recognition is empowering pathology departments to work more efficiently.

At a key stage in the diagnostic process, pathology his a vital role to play in transforming healthcare and the experience of patients. However, cloud-based speech recognition provider Augnito identifies chronic underfunding and outdated technology as major barriers to new ways of working.

“NHS waiting lists are at record highs and, unless workflows change, they’re set to stay that way. Pathology has long been identified as key to diagnostic support outcomes and a priority for digitisation — but it’s not as simple as bringing in new technology. The relationship between old and new, manual and digital, pathologist and technology need to be carefully considered.” stated Shiraz Austin, Co-Founder of Augnito.

Today, pathology is a department that often goes unseen in the depths of the hospital campus. Most pathologists use very familiar ways of working on both macroscopic and microscopic analyses, often including a large amount of repetitive, manual transcription and reporting.

Many pathologists complete these complex workflows in outdated, legacy software. However, speech recognition and automation aren’t simply a way to replace this technology. Augnito makes even older software fully speech enabled.

Austin continued: “Pathology as a department is fairly resistant to change, which is why Augnito is so compelling for this use case. With our comprehensive API and SDK (Augnito Voice Services), we can integrate best-in-class, hands-free, accurate speech recognition into an existing EPR, EMR or LIMS. It’s a way for pathology to evolve how it works, without a complex or costly period of transition.”

Augnito is a cloud-hosted, AI-powered speech recognition solution, built in partnership with medical professionals. Integrated with existing systems or used via a standalone application, web browser, or smartphone/tablet, pathologists are empowered to report from anywhere — while continuing to meet the strict requirements of structured pathology reports.

Beyond simplifying workflows and increasing reporting speed, Augnito also facilitates closer collaboration and information sharing with other departments. As a cloud-hosted platform, data can be made securely available to colleagues for the next stage of the patient journey. In this sense, Augnito brings diagnostic systems and departments together to improve efficiency, research, innovation and — most importantly — patient care.

Austin concluded: “Accuracy is core to Augnito, but agility is equally important. Through our close connections with medical professionals in pathology, radiology and beyond, we’ve been able to develop a solution that looks at the needs of healthcare holistically. We’re confident that even small changes to how people work and an increased use of speech to save time could dramatically transform patient journeys.”

END

Notes to editors
Read the full blog post here www.scribetech.co.uk/2022/11/28/the-symbiosis-of-technology-in-diagnostic-reporting-how-sr-can-enhance-pathology

For further information, interview opportunities or accompanying graphics please contact: [email protected]

About Augnito
Augnito is a secure, cloud-based, AI-driven clinical speech recognition product suite. It offers fast, easy ways to capture live clinical data on any device with 99% accuracy, support for multiple medical specialities, and no need for voice profile training. Augnito brings seamless speech recognition to daily workflows and third-party clinical systems, turning medical information into clinical documentation and making healthcare intelligence securely accessible everywhere. Augnito was developed by its parent company, Scribetech, a clinical voice solutions innovator, fusing 20 years of transcription and digital dictation services to the NHS, speech-to-text, and clinical coding solutions for the healthcare sector, and its own speech recognition engine with advanced voice AI technology.

www.scribetech.co.uk/augnito-speechrecognition

 

… how speech recognition can enhance pathology and the wider patient journey

Pathology as a critical department on the path to diagnosis and treatment, has a vital role to play in simplifying and improving the patient journey – but with structured reporting, restrictive workflows, and legacy technology, unlocking mobility, efficiency and accuracy is a significant challenge.

Patient journeys across healthcare are, in some ways, unavoidably complex. Successful diagnosis and treatment require numerous departments to work together, sharing information and data, often under significant pressure and time constraints. Restrictive technology makes this task needlessly difficult for departments like pathology and, more importantly, it negatively impacts the patient experience and, ultimately, outcomes.

Like radiology, pathology must evolve to meet rising demand, considerable backlogs, and waiting lists that remain at record levels. Flexible, accurate speech recognition has the potential to deliver this evolution.

The challenges for pathology

The health of patients depends on a healthy, high-performing healthcare system. However, like radiology and many other departments, pathologists face considerable challenges in coping with the number of samples and analyses required to address NHS backlogs. These challenges are the main contributing factor to stress, burnout and poor work-life balance, more so than quantity of workload alone.

In August 2022, the number of people on NHS waiting lists reached 7 million. This landmark figure, in the height of summer, paints the picture of a difficult winter. For departments like pathology, it’s an issue that is perpetual.

In part, these difficulties are the product of high demand from patients and little to no transformation in how pathologists record and report on their work. Many departments are tied to deeply embedded, often antiquated workflows. With a need for structured reporting and a lot of complex detail, changing these workflows is seen as a significant risk.

At the same time, the pressure to change is immense. In 2015, the National Advisory Group on Health Information Technology in England found that pathology was key to diagnostic support outcomes and should be at the forefront of NHS digitisation. Since then, funding for AI and digital pathology services has been forthcoming and the NHS has begun to introduce new information standards for pathologist reporting.

However, transforming pathology and improving the patient journey also means rethinking how pathologists work day-to-day.

Investing in core clinical workflows and pathology efficiency

Unlike radiology, pathology is not traditionally an early adopter of new technology. Many pathologists find themselves using outdated, legacy systems every day as part of their routine. It’s in these ever-present, often limiting systems that Trusts can achieve the biggest return on investment.

Technology like voice-AI powered speech recognition allowing all too needed handsfree dictation now help to accelerate the pathology reporting workflow directly into the LIMS, enhancing and making them significantly easier for pathologists. Standalone or integrated into an EPR, EMR or LIMS, intuitive and contextual speech recognition gives pathologists a more efficient way to work, creating measurable time savings and improved reporting speed.

Ultimately, this influences the patient journey, waiting lists, and outcomes. Speech recognition enables a faster, more agile department, delivering a quick return on investment that empowers the radiologists and pathologists, to support the Trusts and patients alike.

At the same time, closer integration across pathology and radiology is a necessity. A study published in BMC Medicine identified this opportunity to bring diagnostic reporting systems together, improving clinical efficiency, research, innovation and, ultimately, patient care.

How Augnito is transforming pathology and patient care

Pathology is chronically underfunded and dependant on legacy technology, often unseen in depths of a hospital campus. Across complex workflows from macroscopic and microscopic analyses to final diagnosis, pathologists need best-in-class, hands-free technology to stay on top of rising workloads and play their important role in the patient journey.

Cloud-hosted

Augnito is a cloud-hosted, AI-powered speech recognition solution, that can now enable pathologists to create those structured reports using their voice to describe the biological make up and structure in precise detail. This provides seamless follow-on specialities with an easy, fast way to decipher the diagnostic next steps. Crucially, it’s the innovative and disruptive technology solution built in partnership with healthcare professionals, accounting for the reporting language specifics and complexity of every department across the patient journey.

Accuracy

Augnito delivers beyond 99% accuracy on any device, in any accent, with no need for voice profile training or a long onboarding process. The solution also includes a specific histopathology language modelling, capable of handling the complex detail and unique terms of pathology.

Mobility

It fits effortlessly into pathology workflows, any new technology especially when it needs to be completely mobile. Augnito is available on any device, anytime, anywhere, wherever and whenever it is needed.

Integration

Augnito includes a flexible API & SDK, “Augnito Voice Services”. This can be used to integrate the best-in-class medical speech recognition with the LIMS, enabling pathologists to work better, more accurately, more efficiently, and crucially within the existing workflow structure.

Flexibility

Finally, a cloud-hosted speech recognition like Augnito is available quickly with no complex changes to infrastructure. Departments can start using Augnito on any scale, especially where budgets are strained. By delivering measurable improvements to pathology workflows in days, not months, Augnito delivers a fast return on investment and soon pays for itself many times over.

Challenge Augnito – try it.  Partner with Augnito

Try the Augnito App or request an evaluation version. Challenge it with the longest most complex medical terminology in a noisy environment and let us know what you think! Talk to us about reselling Augnito, or about its easy integration capabilities. Talk to the growing UK list of Augnito Partners to find out how their customers successfully transferred from legacy SR products to benefiting from this next-gen voice-AI driven speech recognition solution.