Sure, let’s send private medical data to a cloud server somewhere for processing, because a medical professional in 2025 can’t be expected to know how to use a keyboard. That’s absurd.
I’m in an unusual situation as an anesthesiologist; I don’t have a clinic to worry about, so my rate-limiting factor isn’t me, it’s the surgeon. EMR is extremely helpful for me because 90% of my preop workup is based on documentation, and EMR not only makes that easy but lets me do it while I still have the previous patient under anesthesia. I actually need to talk to 95% of patients for about 30 seconds, no more.
But my wife is primarily a thinking rather than doing doctor, and while she can type well, why in the hell do we want doctors being typists for dictation of their exams? Yes, back in the old days, doctors did it by hand, but they also wrote things like “exam normal” for a well-baby visit. You can’t get paid for that today; you have to generate a couple of paragraphs that say “exam normal”.
Incidentally, as for cloud service, if your hospital uses Epic, your patients’ info is already shared, so security is already out of your hands.
The absurdity is that doctors have to enter a metric shit ton of information after every single visit even when there’s no clearly compelling need for it for simple office visits beyond “insurance and/or Medicare” requires it. If you’re being seen for the first time because of chest pain, sure. If you’re returning for a follow up for a laceration you had sewn closed, “patient is in similar condition as last time, but the wound has healed and left a small scar” would be medically sufficient. Alas, no, the doctor still has to dictate “Crime and Punishment” to get paid.
Some are software companies that ingest data to the cloud as you say. Some are remote/phone transcription services, which pass voice data to humans to transcribe it. Those humans then store it in the cloud when it is returned to a doctor's office. Some are EMR-integrated transcription services which are either cloud-based with the rest of the EMR or, for on-premise EMRs, ship data to/from the cloud for transcription.
Furthermore, preparing/capturing docs is just one type of task specialization and isn’t that crazy: stenographers in courtrooms or historically secretaries taking dictation come to mind. Should we throw away an otherwise perfectly good doctor just for typing skills?
And then the doctors double checks and signs everything. I feel like, often you go to the doctor an 80% of the time they stare at the screen and type something. If this could get automated and more time is spent on the patient, great!
These models definitely aren’t foolproof, and in fact have been known to write down random stuff in the absence of recognisable speech: https://koenecke.infosci.cornell.edu/files/CarelessWhisper_E...
In a lot of provider organizations, certain doctors are chronically late about reviewing and signing their reports. This slows down the revenue cycle because bills can't be sent out without final documentation so the administrative staff have to nag the doctors to clear their backlogs.