TIPS FOR PHYSICIANS FOR A GOOD DICTATION

1. Know your Dictation Equipment: Make sure you have read the manual once when using a new microphone.
2. Make sure there is little or no background noise when recording on the microphone.
3. Keep silent gaps of a couple of seconds at the start and end of each recording to avoid the voice being clipped during processing.
4. Always state the full name and contact information of the patient, date and time of the interaction being captured for better offline reference.
5. Spell out Medical Terms to make sure they are captured properly, this is a must in case of manual transcription.
6. Do not use slang or short forms unless they are the medical norm.
7. During dictation ensure that the microphone is at an optimum distance from the mouth.
8. Do not mumble, fade out mid/end sentence or talk very slowly, this may lead to errors during transcription
9. 
   Always mention documentation information for e.g. carbon copy, copied to, page no of referenced document, etc.
10.  Use proper indicators at the start and end of paragraphs and sentences, in case of manual transcription mention “Full Stop” at the end of each sentence, auto transcription may have similar such rules. Follow them.
11. Switch of your telephone, mobile phones or pagers when dictating into the microphone.
12. Be organized and keep required stuff handy otherwise noise from paper shuffling, drawers opening and other noise from movement will generate interference.
13.  For similar items create a standard set of phrases you refer to often, this will let the software / manual transcriptionist learn for better and quicker transcription.
14. In case of errors rewind and delete the phrase and re-record over it, do not talk out the delete instructions.
15. Service your dictation equipment regularly.

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