A guide for clinicians
How to dictate
ClinoVoice is an ambient scribe and dictation service for clinicians: it records the consultation, or a dictation, and drafts the clinic letter or note for the clinician to review and approve.
Revised
A dictation is written down as you spoke it: your sentences, in your order, in your words. Nothing is added or summarised, and nothing is re-voiced.
This page is about dictating. For recording a consultation, read Getting the best from ClinoVoice.
What you can dictate
- Letter: to the GP unless you address it otherwise.
- Clinical note: for the record: a ward round, a call, a finding.
- Procedure note: under the standard headings.
Choose which on the Dictate page before you start. You can change it on the sheet after you stop, until processing starts; after that, discard and dictate again. A clinical note or a procedure note is approved and sent to the secretary as a letter is.
How to dictate
- For a letter, say who it is to first, for example "letter to Doctor Patel".
- Speak naturally: the letter is punctuated and paragraphed for you. Say the punctuation only where the layout matters to you, for example "new paragraph" before the plan; anything you say is applied exactly.
- Correct yourself with "scrub that", or "no, I mean" and the right word.
- In a letter, say "copy to" and the name for the cc line. A note has no cc line: "copy to" goes in the review list.
- End with "end of dictation".
Spoken commands
| Say | Written as | Example |
|---|---|---|
| "full stop", "period" | Ends the sentence with a full stop. | "he is well full stop" becomes "He is well." |
| "comma" | A comma. | "as you know comma he has" becomes "As you know, he has" |
| "question mark" | Ends the sentence with a question mark. | "could you check his kidney function question mark" becomes "Could you check his kidney function?" |
| "colon" | A colon. | "plan colon" becomes "Plan:" |
| "semicolon" | A semicolon. | "he walks a mile semicolon he has no pain" becomes "He walks a mile; he has no pain" |
| "open bracket", "close bracket" | Brackets round the words between them. | "in six months open bracket around April close bracket" becomes "in six months (around April)" |
| "new line" | Starts a new line. Lines started this way under a heading such as "Plan:" become a bulleted list. | "plan colon new line repeat scan in six months new line check his kidney function" becomes "Plan: ↵ - Repeat scan in six months. ↵ - Check his kidney function." |
| "new paragraph", "next paragraph" | Starts a new paragraph. | "full stop new paragraph his blood pressure" becomes ". ↵ ↵ His blood pressure" |
| "number one", "number two", "number three" | Each number starts the next item of a numbered list; the list goes on as far as the clinician counts. | "number one repeat scan in six months number two check his kidney function" becomes "1. Repeat scan in six months. ↵ 2. Check his kidney function." |
| "scrub that", "delete that" | Removes the words just dictated, back to the start of the sentence; what follows replaces them. | "he has stopped smoking scrub that he has cut down to five a day" becomes "He has cut down to five a day." |
| "correction", "no, I mean", "sorry" | Replaces the word or phrase just said with the one that follows. | "an aneurysm on the right no I mean the left" becomes "an aneurysm on the left" |
| "copy to" | Adds the person named to the cc line; it is not written in the body. | "letter to Doctor Patel copy to the patient" becomes "cc: [patient name]" |
| "end of dictation" | Ends the letter; anything said after it, such as thanks to the secretary, is left out. | "yours sincerely end of dictation thanks" becomes "Yours sincerely," |
Anything else that sounds like a command is written as you said it and named in the review list.
What the tidy does
Kept exactly. Every sentence you dictate appears in the letter, in the order you dictated it, with its content, hedges, side, measurements, drug names and doses unchanged. Nothing is added, summarised, merged or moved into headed sections, and your wording is not replaced with synonyms.
Tidied. You can speak naturally: where you said no punctuation, the sentences are punctuated and the paragraphs broken at the natural turns, as written English needs. Spoken punctuation and layout are applied exactly where you said them. Hesitations, fillers and repeated words are removed, and grammar is corrected only as written English needs. Words addressed to the secretary or the machine ("letter to", "regarding", "end of dictation", "thanks") are left out of the letter.
Names. Say who the letter is to first. Names you dictate in the body stay as you said them; the header and salutation use the patient's and GP's details from the record.
Numbers. Numbers, units, doses and dates are written as a letter writes them (140/90, 5 mg, 20 mg once daily, 4 May 1971), with the values exactly as you said them.
Lists. Items you dictate under a heading such as "Plan:", each after "new line", become a bulleted list. Say "number one", "number two" and so on for a numbered list; numbers you did not say are never added.
Review list. The list under the letter names every correction whose reach was unclear, every word that looked like a speech recognition error, every instruction to the secretary ("enclose", "attach"), and anything that sounded like a command but is not one of these. An instruction to insert content you did not dictate, such as "put in my usual paragraph about stockings", is never filled in: the letter shows [insert: usual paragraph about stockings] where you asked for it.
Commands as at .
Procedure note headings
| Heading in the note | Say |
|---|---|
| Procedure and date today unless you say otherwise | "Procedure" |
| Operator | "Operator" |
| Assisted by | "Assisted" |
| Anaesthesia | "Anaesthesia" |
| Indication | "Indication" |
| Findings | "Findings" |
| Performed what was done, in order | "Performed" |
| Closure, implants and specimens | "Closure" |
| Complications and blood loss | "Complications" |
| Instructions after the procedure | "Instructions" |
Say the bold word to open a heading, then dictate its content.
Headings you do not say are left out of the note; the review lists them.
A heading opens only when you say its word as a heading, at the start of what you dictate next: "the findings were as expected", said inside a sentence, stays where you said it. A procedure note is always dictated on its own and listed with the day's dictations; its date is today's unless you dictate one under Procedure.
Headings as at .