The Service

The DICT8 service is easy to use- we fit in with your existing processes and don't expect you to change to fit with us.

The starting point is the dictation: The clinician dictates, as they usually would, into a dictation machine - the only difference for them would be that it is a digital one, as opposed to an analogue tape. Dictation can also be uploaded by iPhone or Android. The user then logs into a secure website using their normal internet browser in order to upload the dictation to us through the web. This is a very straightforward and secure process taking a few seconds.

Once the dictation has been received by us it is then worked on by one of our UK-based medical secretaries (who will have several year's NHS experience of the relevant specialty). The file will then be returned to you (the average turnaround time is 2 hours 32 minutes).

The transcript will be available to download through the web (using the same interface as above) and will be readily identifiable by hospital or patient number. when you select a transcript you can listen to the dictation again, edit it and download it into Word as you see fit.

As far as the medical staff (i.e. dictators) are concerned: we provide compatibility with a wide range of dictation machines. These digital dictation machines have all of the functionality that one would expect (including reviewing, overwriting, inserting and splitting letters) and also benefit from having a ‘slider’ switch that is most familiar to users of the old fashioned cassette tape machines.

The DICT8 system has been specifically designed to deal with issues such as additional information on the dictation file (e.g. ‘please book Mrs. Smith in again next Tuesday’) that occur regularly in real world use of medical transcription systems: There is a specific field in the transcription ‘transcript notes’ that is available to allow the transcriber to type out such dictated instructions, whilst keeping them separated from the letter that they accompany. At the Trust end such instructions will be on the screen / downloaded letter as a readily identifiable separate section that refers to a specific patient and letter.

We can also provide integration with the Trust PAS system so as to enable automatic population of the returned letter with, say, the patient’s address details (this is done as the letter is returned to the Trust and does not breach Caldicott); and automatic storage of the finished letter in the EPR.

We also provide the user with various management tools including the ability to retrieve all of the letters that refer to a particular patient and the ability to monitor the status and progress of their dictations and transcripts, as well as a cloud based workflow management system and integration with various third party ones.

We have some helpful videos about the system here