Developing a wireless speech- and touch-based intelligent comprehensive triage support system

The implementation of voice recognition technology has been expected to occur in mobile healthcare settings, but it is the least studied solution in nursing. The objective of this study is to examine its value to mobile nursing. The study was done at a triage station in an emergency department. The system was developed using VB6.0, Microsoft Speech SDK 5.1 and the Simplified Chinese Language pack, and was installed on touchscreen PCs with wireless headsets. Thirty nurses were enrolled. Accuracy rate and operation time were used to measure the subjects' performance. A "willingness to use" score on a scale of 1 to 10 was used to measure subjects' preference for the system. The results showed that the average accuracy rate was 99%, the average operation time was 108 seconds, and the mean "willingness to use" rating was 8.2. This study demonstrates the value of multimodal voice recognition techniques to mobile nursing.