Medical Transcription

For more than 35 years now, speech specialists along with engineers have been trying to produce a computer which is able to recognize the spoken word. In this article we will be taking a closer look at speech recognition history in relation to just what has been achieved over the last few years.

Although no one has as yet been able to produce a computer which is able to recognize the spoken word, there are many software packages available today which can. For many years now, speech recognition software has been used in games, toys, computers, data collection, dictation and instruments.

The technology which was first used in order to produce speech recognition software was extremely expensive and accuracy was poor. Originally, the computer chip which was able to recognize between 10 and 15 words when spoken would cost you around a few dollars, but the actual computer (which needed to be extremely powerful) and the accompanying software would cost you a few thousand dollars and could only recognize around 50,000 words.

However, during the last 10 years or so there have been great advances in the technology being used to produce speech recognition software. So much so that, a person can now buy a software package for a couple of hundred dollars and run it on a PC that is worth less than $1,000. There are some systems now available which are able to recognize any one person's voice and these are often found on over-the-telephone systems. However, there are other systems which have been adapted to be used by one particular person only and can recognize not just their voice but also the way in which they pronounce words as well.

All speech recognition software today uses sets of complicated algorithms which translate math formulas into words, and it is a program within the software which then processes the words and produces them onto the computer screen. The key to ensure that a person is able to successfully use such software is that it has the correct language model and vocabulary technology available to it. It is the language model within the program which will ensure that the words we speak will come together naturally and will be produced according to the spelling and grammar in relation to that particular language.

Since its beginnings, speech recognition software has vastly improved. For many years ahead, there will still be many more pages that will be added to speech recognition history. Currently, there are companies which are devising speech recognition software that is solely designed for use by medical professionals. At the end of day, what everyone wants is a program that works and that provides them with high levels of accuracy when it comes to converting the spoken word into text.

Medical Transcription | Privacy Policy |