Dictaphone Corporation today announced the introduction of mdEssential, the company's first software offering to combine its voice dictation, speech recognition, and natural language processing (NLP) technologies.

The software is designed to speed up documentation time and reduces transcription costs by removing manual processes from the traditional dictation/transcription process, while fulfilling the essential data capture requirements of the electronic medical record (EMR), and requires little or now change in a physicians work habits, the company said.

Dictaphone has designed the mdEssential package to serve as a cost-effective alternative to EMR systems for clinics and practices that are not yet ready to invest the significant time and resources required to re-tool their operations around a traditional EMR system.

To that end, the software package helps organizations avoid some of the pains associated with conventional EMRs, such as enduring costly and time-consuming technology implementation, said Dictaphone.

With typical EMRs caregivers are generally required to shift to a 'point-and-click' or keyboard data-entry process for clinical notes. According to Dictaphone, mdEssential has been designed so that an organization can retain voice input, which adds speech recognition for quick turnaround. The software also provides voice-driven templates and standard text blocks to further shorten documentation time.

mdEssential is available immediately direct from Dictaphone or from one of the company's authorized resellers, the company