Pusan National University Hospital (PNUH) has introduced “voice keyboard,” an electronic chart voice input system, for the first time in Korea, hospital officials said Monday.

Voice keyboard is a system that enables automatic documenting without needing the manual input of doctor's diagnosis, prescription, and image reading findings by using voice recognition technology. It also recognizes the contents of medical care through a speech recognizer, converts it into text, and sends the data to the electronic medical record (EMR).

PNUH_{부산대병원} is the first institution in Korea to introduce speech recognition technology into the documentation of hospital medical records.

The hospital demonstrated the system at the Medical ICT Convergence Center in Busan, with 40 hospital staff members attending, including Pusan National University Hospital President Lee Chang-hoon_이창훈 and Convergence Medical Technology Director Park Hyak-min.

The advantage of the Voice Keyboard is that doctors can concentrate more on the patient by using the voice input solution, which can input their medical records without using the keyboard for the electronic charts. It also can prevent the loss of information necessary for the care because the contents of care between the doctor and the patient are not entirely recorded at the time.

Hospitals can apply the system to various fields related to the general medical records of surgery as well as outpatient services. They can also use it as an automatic response system by recognizing patient’s voices.

PNUH has introduced the system to customer support team and mental health department. By using the system, it will likely reduce the time required to write medical records, increase the time to communicate with patients and improve work efficiency and productivity.

PNUH said it also plans to develop artificial intelligence-based disease classification automation system and prescription automation system.

The solution optimization is equally applicable to electronic charts of other hospitals. As part of the exchange of national medical information, the hospital will provide the solution free of charge to the hospital for information exchange and cooperation in Busan, it said.

"We hope that both medical and administrative departments of this hospital will use the ‘voice keyboard’ system while physicians, patients, and hospital staff will make the most of this system as a platform for the development of various related systems," Lee said.