Speech recognition technology was first introduced in Radiology departments about 25 years ago. It is only in recent years that it has improved to the point of being usable in other areas of healthcare.

The heart of a speech recognition system is the engine that uses acoustic and linguistic models to transcribe audio in real time. The first objective for the introduction of a speech recognition system in Radiology is to reduce the report production time (report turnaround time), i.e. the time interval between the execution of the exam and the availability of the report in the archive.

The release time is reduced - for the most urgent situations the report is available in real time - with consequent advancement of any treatment, contributing to the reduction of hospital stay.