xRead - Incorporating Artificial Intelligence into Clinical Practice (March 2026)

Ng et al. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making

(2025) 25:236

Page 10 of 24

Key Findings Novel Features

Performance varies depending on the speaker. Individual users’ speech pat

terns, such as accent and speed, impact transcription productivity and accuracy. Identifying a subset of users for whom

transcription technology works well and optimising the tool for various speech

characteristics could improve its efficiency. Productivity can be targeted for specific tasks. Certain tasks, like longer clinical

notes, showed improved productivity with SR. Focusing on optimizing the system for specific document types or task lengths could improve overall system efficacy​.

The study suggests a blended approach where a transcriptionist reviews and

corrects initial voice-recognition outputs; could improve efficiency by reducing the need for physicians to spend extensive time on transcription correction while ensuring high accuracy​.

Overall, secretaries and transcription ists using SR could complete less

dictation than transcriptionists using standard transcription. SR was better for secretaries who were slower and, perhaps, for longer dictation jobs.

VRS decreases turnaround time of physicians’ notes from 1 week to 1 day. The use of VRS was 66% less efficient in

total time, and costs twice as much as conventional transcription. VRS is best suited for practices in which highly

repetitive phrases reoccur. At this time, VRS does not seem to have reached the threshold for general adoption.

AI Transcription

Proficiency (paper

specific outcomes)

NR Productivity for SR as a percentage of pro

ductivity for standard

transcription (95% CI) 87.3 (83.3, 92.3) 63.3 (54.0, 74.0)

55.8 (44.6, 68.0)

Total time in minutes

per letter (baseline)* 14 3.3

Total time in minutes per letter (trained)* 9.6 3.3

Cost comparison* $15,290/ year $6970/year

Metric (F1 score,

Precision, Recall, WER)

WER*

0.087

0.00027

Standard care - Endocrinology - Psychiatry

transcriptionists - Psychiatry secretaries

Gold standard - Voice Recogni tion Software (VRS) - Control

Comparator Type Subcategories Performance

Standard

Productivity was compared via

the total time

to complete

transcription

using standard transcription

versus speech

recognition (SR)

Transcription

of physician

dictated letter

by a medical

transcriptionist

Table 2 (continued)

Study Reference Mohr et

al., 2003 [11]

Issen

man et

al., 2004 [12]