Speech Recognition Goes South

Laval, Quebec and Johannesburg, South Africa - 15 April 2008 - Crescendo announced today that Drs Conidaris and Partners, a private radiology group located at the Glynnwood Hospital premises in Benoni, South Africa, have completed the rollout of a Crescendo/SpeechMagic speech recognition system. After evaluating different technologies, the partners chose SpeechMagic both for its wealth of built-in Radiology vocabulary and its smooth integration with the renowned Crescendo technology. "The Crescendo/SpeechMagic solution offers unique features such as real-time streaming, which allows for immediate speech processing; a key feature for mission-critical environments" explains Kevin McEvoy, Managing Director, Datafer.

With the Crescendo/SpeechMagic technology, the practice was able to deliver on its initial objectives: speed up report production and reduce transcription costs. With the secretaries' newfound ability to edit medical reports as opposed to typing them in full, fewer resources are required to process the same volume of reports. "Skilled medical typists are extremely hard to find in the region, and a growing number of South African healthcare facilities welcome speech recognition technology as a reliable, cost-efficient way to address this issue. The technology has clearly matured significantly over the past few years and is delivering the expected results," explain the radiologists at the practice. The first medical report dictated achieved over 75% accuracy and this rate is continually improving as the system learns.

Digital mobile recorders (Philips 9600) are used by physicians to dictate either directly from the practice or on the move. Every time the device is docked and a network connection is established, DigiService-IP automatically and securely streams completed voice files to the central server in real-time. The Secretary then uses DigiPlayer-IP, the Microsoft Word based playback and transcription application from Crescendo, to correct the document.

"South African hospitals and clinics are increasingly aware of the importance of digital technology to modernize both their practice and care delivery, and they are very selective in their purchasing process, with good reason" explains Costa Mandilaras, President, Crescendo Systems Corporation. "This is why we chose a distributor, Datafer, with outstanding support services to properly deliver the Crescendo 18-year field expertise to South African customers. I believe that Drs Conidaris and Partners is the first of many more South African healthcare installations to come," concludes Mandilaras.