Best Practices for Speech-to-Text Dictations

Following are the best practices for working with dictations in NextGen® Mobile:

• Before beginning the dictation, gather any papers and reports that you might need for your reference.
• Include all punctuation, especially periods, commas, and new paragraphs.
• Avoid using fillers such as “ah,” “um,” “er,” and “uh” as they can be confused for the letter ‘a’. Try to eliminate those sounds or select Stop to pause.
• Dictate in a secure, quiet environment.
• Dictate at a steady pace, not too loudly or softly. Keep your device eight-to-ten inches away from your mouth.
• Use Stop Recording to pause during side conversations, when multitasking, sorting documents, opening drawers, and other non-dictation-related activities.
• Pause for sometime after you select Record and before you select Stop to ensure that all dictation is recorded.
• Use the same phrases in each of your report types, and follow the same order of tags whenever possible.
• Good enunciation in all macro dictation is important, especially with sound-alike words. Dictate the sound-alike drug names clearly with spelling.

  For example, Endal, Inderal, Mirasept, and Mircette.

• Dictate dosage instructions consistently.
• Do not include abbreviations or symbols in a macro name.
• Do not include tables and field codes in macros.
• Do not change large sections of text when dictating the note.
• Left-align the ordered (numbered) lists in macros. Do not tab or indent the list items.
• Check for grammar and spelling mistakes.
• Use a macro for only one purpose, such as for one body part, one location, and one procedure.

  For example, for left and right knee injections, create two separate macros: left knee injection and right knee injection.

• To edit macros that include blank fields, place the cursor within the brackets where you want to enter data, dictate the necessary wording, and then say Next Field to move the cursor to the next blank field and continue dictating.
  For example, first blank [], second blank [].

  Note: Place the cursor inside the first bracket and then dictate. After filling in the first blank, the brackets are removed, and then say Next Field to move the cursor to the second bracket.
• Certain iOS notifications can appear during a dictation, pausing the recording, and putting the job on hold. Notifications that interrupt dictation are the following:
  • Phone Calls (Apple® iPhone® mobile digital device only unless Apple® FaceTime® voice and video calling is setup).
  • Low battery alerts.
  • Emergency alerts (severe weather, amber alerts, and other alerts).
  • Devices running iOS® 8 or 9 that have any application notifications turned on as “Alerts”.
    You can manage notifications in the device's Settings > Notifications. In the Notification Style section, you can customize the settings per application. Choose Banners if you do not want those notifications to interfere with dictation. Devices running iOS 10 or higher are not affected.