Dictionary Creation Best Practices
The dictionary is designed to help speech recognition of proper nouns such as names and locations. Adding these items to the dictionary once is enough to have them recognized within the context of the user’s dictation, without the need to vocally spell out the word or type it into the system.
When adding to the dictionary, these best practices are recommended:
Only add words which would *not* be in the baseline dictionary. It is not necessary to add general terms such as “purulent” or “atelectasis”. These types of terms already exist in the M*Modal dictionary.
Adding basic words impedes the recognition effectiveness of other clinical words and locations that have been added. Avoid entering small words to the dictionary, such as “a”, “ the”, “one”, “then”
It is recommended that a pronunciation is recorded with your dictionary items.
Add the category to all dictionary entries. Each item will default to “other”, but changing it to the appropriate category title of medication, name, or location will significantly improve your recognition results of that term.
Replacement Rules – When adding replacement rules in the dictionary use caution and be sure to not expect the original word to be dictated elsewhere in the system; it will always provide the replacement word.
When adding replacement rules for abbreviations, such as b.i.d., it should be entered with the punctuation, so the term is recognized as the characters b.i.d., and not the word “bid”. When adding an acronym like “UMC” for “University Medical Center”, be sure to capitalize “UMC.”
How to Enter Multiple Word Phrases
Multiple word phrases that are dictated together should be added to the dictionary as one phrase. If the individual words are uncommon to the general vocabulary, and will potentially be dictated separately, the individual word should also be entered.
Example, Name with multiple words, Hospital Facility name
University of Wichita Medical Center would be added as a Phrase, and Wichita would be entered separately also.
Example, Physician Name, first and last name, common
John Smyth would have two entries
Enter “Smyth”, John would be a common name that would be recognized, so there is no need to enter it into the dictionary
Also Enter “John Smyth”
Example, Physician Name, first and last, non-common
Arvil Constence would have two entries considering a typical physician practices
Full name dictation – Arvil Constence
Dr. followed by the last name only – adding only Constence Do NOT include commands or command words in the dictionary
Caution
Do NOT include commands or command words in the dictionary