Medical Mac Users Have Cause for Celebration
That’s right—it’s finally here. Dragon Dictate Medical for Mac version 4 has arrived.
If you’re running Yosemite, this has got to be welcome news. This latest version supports both OS X 10.9 and 10.10, or Mavericks and Yosemite respectively. Whether you have a previous version of Dragon Dictate Medical for Mac (DDM4M) or are looking into purchasing the software for the first time, you can now work on the latest Apple platform with a fully-supported medical voice recognition system.
For those of you who are already enjoying Dragon Dictate Medical for Mac version 3, Nuance has provided a “smart upgrade” that will allow you jump to DDM4M version 4 at a discounted price.
Aside from Yosemite support, there are other great features that make this release a choice opportunity for improving your speech-to-text experience. Let’s explore some of them.
Improvements Over Version Three
If you’ve already got DDM4M v3, and Yosemite is not a concern for you, then you may be wondering what else this new version has to offer. We’re glad you asked.
- Look for overall better speech recognition accuracy (compared to DDM4M v3). In addition, version 4 runs as a 64-bit application. You should find that the program lags less often, and is more responsive when you make edits.
- This new Mac version also incorporates the vocabularies and acoustic models from the Windows version, Dragon Medical Practice Edition 2. Therefore, you may see an increase in the number of terms Dragon recognizes from your particular medical specialty.
- There is now a “general English” vocabulary. As strange as it sounds, it’s actually quite helpful. Up until this point, DDM4M only really concerned itself with recognizing your speech as it pertained to your medical specialty. Now, you’re able to use version 4 of Dragon Dictate Medical for Mac to help you with non-medical voice recognition whenever you need it.
- Just like its non-medical counterpart, DDM4M v4 can now transcribe recordings—and not only for just one voice. After submitting a 90 second audio file, and then making corrections, you can expect version 4 to transcribe almost any voice. Unfortunately, it cannot yet handle multiple voices at once.File formats include: mp3, aif, aiff, wav, mp4, m4a, and m4v.
- If you like using Dragon for email, version 4 also allows you to have full text control in Gmail (using Safari or Firefox). You can now rely on voice commands to write and send emails, as well as open and reply to messages in your inbox.
- Nuance even streamlined the profile creation process, to help you get started more quickly.
Other Features
Here are some items to consider for anyone who’s never used Dragon Dictate Medical for Mac before. These aren’t new features, per se, but they are vitally important for English-speaking clinicians working on an Apple platform with Dragon.
- Supports the MacPractice EMR, with full text control in the notes fields
- When necessary, uses the Express Editor to pair with Mac EMRs
- Includes both UK and US English
- Supports HIPAA compliance
Apple Pages
As you may or may not know, Apple Pages stopped supporting AppleScript in version 5. Therefore, while you can dictate into this application using Dragon Dictate Medical for Mac v4, you will not have full text control or the ability to use commands.
If this is a deal breaker for you, it’s recommended that you revert to Pages v4.3.
System Requirements
Finally, as you’re looking into this latest version of DDM4M, take note of the technical specifications you’ll need to meet to run the software on your Mac.
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz or faster (i3, i5 or i7 recommended)
- RAM: 4GB minimum (8GB+ recommended)
- Free hard disk space: 8GB
- Operating System: Only supports OS X Mavericks 10.9 or OS X Yosemite 10.10