CCC VRI Users, With the release of Dragon 10, there are many updates and enhancements available to CCC VRI users.  All VRI users who have paid for annual support have access to the upgrade at no charge. Before upgrading your installation of CCC VRI to incorporate the Dragon 10 release, there are many items to be considered. What are the improvements in Dragon 10 over Dragon 9 or Dragon 8?  What features will my group be able to use?  What is the benefit to my site for performing the upgrade?  Are there increased hardware requirements?  Do I have to upgrade?  Can I upgrade some of my machines and not others?

These are all very real and valid questions.  Dragon 10 does represent a true increase in both accuracy and capability, and it is available to you as a user of CCC VRI.  It is the intention of CCC that every site that would like to upgrade to Dragon 10 receives the upgrade.  We also want to ensure a successful upgrade.  CCC believes that this is best accomplished by fully understanding the end result of moving to Dragon 10 so that end user expectations are satisfactorily met.  This document will try to lay out for you the considerations, so that you as the end user can make the decision if you would like to upgrade.

WHAT ARE THE IMPROVEMENTS IN DRAGON 10 FROM DRAGON 8 or DRAGON 9?

Speech models – Increased Accuracy

Recognition in Dragon 10 is improved.  There is both a qualitative and a quantitative evaluation to accuracy.  The published number for accuracy improvement from Dragon 9 to Dragon 10 is 20%; from Dragon 8 to Dragon 9 it was 30%, but what does that mean?  Recognition accuracy is quantified by taking the number of mistakes made by the system over a set number of words dictated.  If a user dictates 100 words and there are 5 errors, then that is considered 95% accuracy.  A 30% increase in accuracy would reduce the number of errors by 30%.  In the above example, for 200 dictated words the user would expect 10 errors.  After upgrading from Dragon 8 to Dragon 9, those same 200 words would expect to have 7 errors.  After upgrading to Dragon 10, those same words would have now 5.4 errors (on average).  In a more general approach, while not counting words, the end user will recognize improved accuracy with Dragon 10, especially if moving from Dragon 8 (about half as many mistakes).  The most noticeable improvement in Dragon 10 is the speed.  Recognition is much quicker in Dragon 10 than in Dragon 9 and Dragon 8.  You will have improved accuracy, but the speed at which the words appear on the screen is what you will notice first.

Improved Dictation Box

The formatting capabilities and overall functionality of the dictation box have been improved.  The font and size settings will now stick inside Centricity so you can dictate into the dictation box and have the words come out in Arial 10 so it matches the rest of your note.  There is also a hidden mode of the dictation box which allows you to dictate into the dictation box while changing windows.  You can view external documents, look at flowsheet views and lab reports, and still be able to dictate into the dictation box.  You then place your cursor in the field you want the text and say “Transfer”.

Data Distribution Tool

Support for Bluetooth microphones

Citrix Support

For Citrix sites, the ability now exists to load the voice recognition directly on the Citrix server and then publish the Dragon application to your VRI users.  This will allow the software to operate as a local install.  Previous limitations and work-arounds attributable to the Citrix connection are minimized.  Installation and Setup decisions will vary from site to site.  Please contact CCC in order to discuss the various options and considerations.  CCC highly recommends that any sites accessing Logician through Citrix upgrade to Dragon 10 whether an installation on the Citrix server is being considered or not.

ARE THERE NEW HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS FOR DRAGON 10?

Local Install: 1 GB RAM is now the minimum, and 2.0 GB is preferred. 1 GHz Pentium IV (or equivalent) processor is now the minimum and 2.4 GHz is preferred.  Dragon 9 will not install on a machine with less than a 1 GHz processor.

CCC recommends a minimum of 250 MB of RAM to be allocated per user who will be accessing Centricity and Dragon over a Citrix connection. It is extremely important not to upgrade unless the performance requirements are met, otherwise system performance and user satisfaction will suffer. If you had held off the upgrade to Dragon 9 because of performance concerns, you will want to meet those hardware requirements before upgrading to Dragon 10.

Dragon 10 can not be loaded on the same machine as either Dragon 8 or Dragon 9. All user files located on a machine which upgrades to Dragon 10 must be upgraded. You can not match Dragon 8 or Dragon 9 users on the same machine with Dragon 10 users. You can upgrade some machines and not others. The consideration is that you would then have two versions of the voice file, one in Dragon 8 or Dragon 9 and one in Dragon 10. Your existing Dragon 8 or Dragon 9 voice files can be upgraded. This means you do not have to recreate the voice files for existing users. Instructions for upgrading the voice files are included with the software upgrade instructions.

WHAT DO I DO IF I WANT TO UPGRADE?

Michael Janas
Vice President
Clinical Content Consultants

REQUESTED INFORMATION for CCC VRI Upgrade

Name of Group:  

Contact Person: 

Phone Number:    

e-mail:                 

Last Renewal Date:   

Upgrade Format:         DownloadDVD ($25 fee) 

Number of Voice Recognition licenses: