Digital dictation has allowed companies to move away from the restriction of tape-based dictation systems:
- No more tapes to break
- Workload planning
- Encourage teamwork (even between different offices)
- Work remotely and from home
The ability to enable work at home, remote and flexible offers significant benefits: productivity while out of the office, allowing sick workers to work from home, when bad weather prevents workers from returning to the office, they can still work and employees with dependents may work while at home.
Security is always an issue when working remotely, possibly the best method to secure working at home is to use Remote Desktop/Terminal Services or Citrix servers so no information/data leaves your office(s). ). The only problem with Citrix/Terminal Services is that while they retain security, they don’t lend themselves well to audio, such as digital dictation.
The starting point is that there are two types of remote workers, firstly the dictator and secondly the transcriber. If you know what you’re doing, it’s relatively easy to set up remote work for the dictator if he’s using mobile dictation machines like the Olympus DS 4000, however transcribers are more difficult.
Until recently the best method was to use third-party/dedicated software like Big Hand or Winscribe instead of the bundled software that comes with dictation/transcription hardware, however the cost of this can be a significant investment. Now, Olympus has succeeded with its new Olympus DS and AS 5000 dictation/transcription machines and software suite, which provides full Citrix and Terminal Services support.
The included software is essentially free when you purchase the hardware, making it an ideal starting point for any organization, allows both dictators and transcriptionists to work from home (or in the office) using Citrix and Terminal Services, and has reduced cost per user to basically the cost of the hardware without the need to hire a maintenance plan!
The software is also easy to use – training is minimal. For technicians, it also provides good network setup, configuration options, and the option to have concurrent user licenses.
In short, an excellent low-cost package for Citrix and Terminal Services support for digital dictation.