Established in 1906, The American Hospital of Paris is a not-for-profit institution that brings together the best in French and American medical practices for the health of patients of all nationalities. It is also the only civil institution, outside of US borders, to be authorized by the Joint Commission.

With 145 in-patient hospital beds, 20 day hospital beds and 386 accredited physicians and surgeons, the hospital welcomes over 17,000 patients each year.

From Tapes To Digital

Until 2009, the hospital was relying on a tape recorders that doctors used to dictate medical reports: ageing material that was causing more and more delays. “5 to 10 days were typically required from dictation to signature”, says Dalila Kharkhouch Marzet, Medical Records Director. The hospital therefore decided to switch to digital dictation, outlining the following key requirements:

–  To make all records digital
–  To make secretaries’ life easier thanks to the automatic import of patient demographics into the report
–  To facilitate overall workflow management
–  To create a central pool of secretaries for the hospital as opposed to just one per department.
–  To keep track of all system activity, from voice recording and e-signature all the way to final report distribution.

A Truly Comprehensive Solution 

After evaluating the different solutions available on the market, the hospital chose Crescendo’s Hospital Digital Dictation “because they were the only supplier out there offering an end-to-end solution covering every aspect, from digital dictation all the way to automated report distribution”, Dalila goes on to explain. 190 doctors were equipped with DigiDictate-IP and electronic signature while all 30 secretaries got on board with MedRite-XL Transcription.

The system was first deployed in 2009 under close-to-perfect conditions. All departments were equipped with Crescendo technology, except for Radiology, which already has its own dictation module built into the RIS.

40% Productivity Boost

In the beginning, the system only handled OR reports and discharge letters but all medical reports from all departments followed eventually. “Training and roll-out to doctors, secretaries and system administrators went very well”, Dalila notes. “Doctors got the gist very quickly. It took a bit longer for the secretaries to adapt to the wide array of functionality offered by MedRite-XL, since they were used to typing in a very basic system until then. The boost in productivity was such that we were able to eliminate 2 full-time temp contracts from our annual budget.”

By standardising letters and forms and pooling secretarial resources, Crescendo allowed the hospital a 40% productivity gain. Secretaries can now relay each other in case of sick leave of holidays. As a result, average turnaround went from 5 days down to 24h and less.

Last but not least: the fact that doctors and secretaries now share a standardized user interface translates into massive efficiency gains for the IT Department. Instead of dealing with several products coming from several suppliers, they now have one system to manage.

Interested in Digital Dictation for your Hospital? Call us on 01932 789433 or email us info@crescendosystems.co.uk.