Ambient Listening Technology vs Voice Dictation

March 22, 2024

illustration of doctor and patient using ambient listening technology vs a doctor using voice dictation.

Revolutionizing Medical Documentation with AI

Physician burnout has been a pressing topic in healthcare. The introduction of AI-powered ambient listening technology, such as Sunoh.ai, is seen as an effective solution in reducing administrative burdens, automating medical documentation workflow, and improving the work-life balance of healthcare professionals. It’s competing with the traditional voice dictation approach. While the technologies may sound similar, they offer distinctive features. Let’s take a look at their differences.

Active Listening vs Passive Listening

Ambient listening technology uses passive listening. AI-powered medical note-taking works in the background, capturing and processing the natural conversation between providers and their patients. It creates a transcript of the dialogue flow, summarizes content into the appropriate progress note sections, allows for review, and imports relevant data.

Voice dictation works through active listening as it converts sentences into structured data. Providers are required to dictate their observations, diagnoses, and treatment plans, which are then transcribed into structured notes.

Instant Documentation vs Manual Entry

Ambient listening technology uses AI and natural language processing tools to generate immediate documentation pulled from patient-provider conversations. It summarizes content to be reviewed and approved by the provider. This allows providers to spend less time notetaking and more time on their patients.

Voice dictation requires the speech pattern of dictation and uses specific language and sentence structures to create clinical records. This process often requires corrections, additional information for completion, and manual review, which can be time-consuming.

Infographic ambient listening vs voice dictation, which compares the two products and technologies and their features.

Multifaceted Interactions vs Split Attention

Ambient listening technology captures multiple voices in a conversation. That means it can document a three-way interaction among a doctor, patient, and family. This allows providers to give their full attention to their patients.

Voice dictation is a monologue that requires providers to split their attention between their patients and their dictation. And the process requires extra effort to complete the documentation based on memory and visit notes well after the appointment has concluded.

AI-powered ambient listening technology is an innovative tool that’s transforming healthcare. This technology operates in the background using passive listening to capture, process, and document patient-provider conversations in real-time.

Advanced AI and natural language processing tools instantly generate clinical documentation from these interactions. Unlike traditional dictation methods, it captures multiple voices in a conversation, allowing providers to put 100% of their focus on their patients. Ambient listening technology improves efficiency, accuracy, and patient-provider relationships.

Visit Sunoh.ai to see how you can use ambient listening technology to improve your practice’s performance.