Fusion Narrate Case Study: Vista Pathology

"One of the most frustrating things when you're trying to work through a case is how many clicks are needed. The LISs that we use are click-heavy and to be able to navigate those more easily with shortcuts is great. I can focus on the case and not focus on where I'm clicking. It's hard to imagine what you can't accomplish in the LIS with Vision Click."

- Dr. Jacob Grange, Pathologist

About Vista Pathology

Vista Pathology was established in 1950 and has seen tremendous growth over the years. Vista Pathology provides excellent service to patients in the community and has become the go-to pathology practice for many physicians and hospitals within the Medford Valley due to its attention to detail and efficiency.

Opportunity

Vista Pathology needed a replacement for its dictation system that was no longer supported. Some pathologists at Vista wanted to begin using speech recognition, but several wanted to continue sending dictations to transcriptionists.

The group needed a solution that could also accommodate multiple systems and locations. Vista supports three major facilities: Providence Hospital, Curry General Hospital, and Asante, each with its own LIS.

"We have a unique setup, where our pathologists are ours but they work in other hospitals - same with some of our transcriptionists. With Dolbey, the rollout went really well.

All of us have been really happy with Dolbey's support. The turnaround time on email responses is really fast; same with calling in."

- Devara Swayze, LIS Coordinator

Solution

The best solution for Vista Pathology was to give pathologists both options. Vista implemented Dolbey’s Fusion Narrate® powered by nVoq™ to support standard dictation and transcription as well as front-end speech recognition and work automation.

Pathologists were able to choose which option best met their needs. For some pathologists, this meant incorporating more speech recognition into their workflow while still primarily using transcription – others continued only using transcription. This hybrid model between transcription and speech recognition allowed Vista Pathology to satisfy all pathologists on its team.

Vista Pathology - Words Transcribed
Shortcuts Used - Vista Pathology

Total words transcribed with speech recognition and voice shortcuts used at Vista Pathology have both seen a steady increase since the implementation of Fusion Narrate.

Pathologists at Vista Pathology have the option to utilize standard dictation and transcription, front-end speech recognition, or a combination of the two. This hybrid model has allowed more pathologists to incorporate speech recognition into their workflow over time.

Pathologists at Vista are able to work in any LIS and at any location with one license through Fusion Narrate. Interoperability between locations and LIS platforms offers one standard way of reading cases, meaning pathologists don’t need to toggle back and forth using different workflows. This has led to higher overall efficiency at Vista Pathology.

"What stood out as I've used Fusion Narrate is the ability to program various actions, like clicking and pressing buttons. In my experience, a lot of LISs or pathology programs involve a lot of clicking and typing. Standardized templates and shortcuts can take that off your plate and leave you more brain power to focus on what you really need to do."

- Dr. Michael Wang, Pathologist

Results

Pathologists who have continued using standard transcription at Vista Pathology were able to move to a new dictation system with no decrease in efficiency. Front-end speech recognition has also taken some of the workload off of transcriptionists.

Pathologists who started using speech recognition with Fusion Narrate have seen significant improvements to their efficiency, as much as 2.5 hours per day on case review. Case load has remained relatively stable at Vista Pathology, meaning pathologists have been able to complete their case work earlier in the day. The time saved by these pathologists can be reallocated and has allowed pathologists to take on more administrative work and special projects, and to focus on process improvement and CME.

Dr. Michael Gailey

Dr. Michael Gailey
Pathologist

"I can't say enough about Dolbey. They have been so responsive to everyone in our group. I think they've sat down with everybody in the group to walk them through and train on transcription and teach them on the speech recognition piece.

I use Dolbey for probably 98% of everything that I sign out; I only use transcription to dictate addendums or amendments."

Case review has become quicker for the team at Vista because of not only speech recognition but also the work automation toolset within Fusion Narrate. Fusion Narrate includes an intuitive, versatile shortcut builder that allowed Vista Pathology to create smart phrases, canned text templates used for reporting, and other work automations.

Pathologists at Vista use shortcuts to pull in templates, complete synoptic reporting, and automate repetitive tasks across multiple LIS platforms. The team has also utilized Vision Click® shortcuts that function across displays and screen sizes. The patented Vision Click shortcut feature has been especially useful for the Vista Pathology team for performing actions that have no default hotkey.

Equipped with Fusion Narrate, Vista Pathology was able to achieve a more standard and efficient workflow. Pathologists using transcription at Vista have been able to seamlessly move to a new dictation system. Pathologists using speech recognition have been able to decrease the time between initial dictation and case sign off, review all cases before the end of each day, and modify reports in real-time.