"Mm-hm," "Uh-uh": are non-lexical conversational sounds deal breakers for the ambient clinical documentation technology?

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Ambient clinical documentation technology uses automatic speech recognition (ASR) and natural language processing (NLP) to turn patient-clinician conversations into clinical documentation. It is a promising approach to reducing clinician burden and improving documentation quality. However, the performance of current-generation ASR remains inadequately validated. In this study, we investigated the impact of non-lexical conversational sounds (NLCS) on ASR performance. NLCS, such as Mm-hm and Uh-uh, are commonly used to convey important information in clinical conversations, for example, Mm-hm as a "yes" response from the patient to the clinician question "are you allergic to antibiotics?"

Materials and methods

In this study, we evaluated 2 contemporary ASR engines,

SUBMITTER: Tran BD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10018260 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature