Citizen Access: Help patients to better understand your notes

The Citizen Access program will be live by November 30, 2022, for those GP Practices using TPP or EMIS. Enabling patients to view their medical records through the NHS App and other online services.

This major change puts a new burden on clinicians as their notes need to be easy to understand, so as to avoid anxiety, misunderstanding, and worry for their patients. While also avoiding calls to GP practices and surgeries from those patients looking for explanations and more information about what they are reading.

Plain English explanations of medical terms to help Citizen Access

Lexacom Echo, a speech recognition system, provides a solution to this need, created by Citizen Access, by automatically adding plain English explanations of medical terms to the clinician’s notes. For example

The clinician, using Lexacom Echo, dictates in the patient’s notes:

“His dyspepsia started after the increase in his NSAIDS so I have started PPI for a trial period of two weeks. Review PRN”

Lexacom Echo writes, and the patient reads in the NHS app:

His dyspepsia (heartburn) started after the increase in his NSAIDS (anti-inflammatory medicine) so I have started PPI (medicine to reduce stomach acid) for a trial period of two weeks. Review PRN (when needed)

Lexacom Echo has taken the medical terms dyspepsia, NSAIDS, PPI, and PRN, and added their respective plain English descriptions after them, in brackets.

It does this automatically, without the clinician having to do anything more than they would when dictating their patient notes in Lexacom Echo. That is, Lexacom Echo adds the descriptions for them, automatically, in brackets, right after the medical term.

Partner Lexacom Echo with the Philips SpeechMike range of microphones for Citizens Access

Lexacom Echo saves busy clinicians time by freeing them from their keyboards and allowing them to use their voice to make notes and dictate letters and reports.

This is further helped by the clinician using a dedicated dictation device from Philips.

The leading SpeechMike Premium Touch Dictation Microphone has a touch sensor that integrates the mouse function into the microphone, further reducing the need to use a keyboard and mouse. The recording is both precise and high-quality thanks to the use of a studio-grade microphone and an integrated pop filter. The microphone is designed for medical use, with its hygienic surface that can be easily and safely disinfected.

The Philips range also includes a wireless dictation microphone, the SpeechMike Wireless Dictation Microphone, and a wireless dictation headset, the SpeechOne Wireless Dictation Headset.

All of these work seamlessly with Lexacom Echo, and other Lexacom products, and are available from Lexacom.

SpeechMike Premium Touch Dictation Microphone

Philips Wireless SpeechMike microphone- partner it with Lexacom Echo to support citizen access

SpeechMike Wireless Dictation Microphone

SpeechOne Wireless Dictation Headset

Three modes of operation

With the addition of this capability to help Citizen Access, Lexacom Echo now has three operating modes.

1. Normal mode

This is the default mode for Lexacom Echo and continues the time-saving professional-grade speech recognition technology that users of Lexacom Echo already know.

In this mode, wherever the cursor is placed the user can write in any Windows application, by speaking the words rather than typing them. Saving them up to 80% of their time, as most people can speak three times faster than they can type.

2. Clinician Mode

In Clinician Mode, as in earlier editions of Lexacom Echo, a doctor can quickly enter medical entries accurately and clearly, into all leading medical systems. This helps improve data quality. As one Echo user said “Echo has improved my record keeping and…patient notes are more concise than when I used to type them”

The Medical systems supported include, but are not limited to, SystmOne, EMIS Web, EMIS PCS, Vision LAN, and Vision AEROS.

3. Patient Mode – the mode for Citizen Access

This is the new operating mode introduced with the latest edition of Lexacom Echo, making it a great tool for supporting Citizen Access

In this mode, the doctor’s use of complex medical terminology is explained in plain English, in brackets, straight after the medical term. As per the example earlier.

Revisit existing notes

As an additional way of supporting Citizen Access, Lexacom Echo can be used to go back over previously written documents and add in the plain-English explanations, automatically.

In an editable document, with Lexacom Echo running in either Clinician or Patient mode, the clinician simply highlights the document they want to explain, presses a key, and the plain-English explanation is added to the text.

This capability allows clinicians to further support Citizen Access by adding in plain-English descriptions on notes and documents that have already been made available to the patient through the NHS app and other related online services.

Find out more

To find out more about Lexacom Echo and how it supports Citizen Access or the range of Philips professional-grade desktop dictation microphones and headsets, call us on 01295 236 910, email us at sales@lexacom.co.uk or use our contact form.