Dragon Medical One Reviews

This will be my last Nuance product.
Have used dragon versions for 13 years for dictating medical record reviews: Generic, Student, Medical, now ONE. Most provided by my company, using on laptops. Switched from WIN 10 with Medical 2.0 to a WIN 11, IT contractors bought Dragon ONE. Should have purchased Professional, or told me to find my 10-year-old Student version disc for a better version. Inability to use offline is inexcusable: a chrome book can run Dragon. Lack of user-selectable features (which I have on my other version…) is an obvious department cut. Ex:
-“New Paragraph” gave the proper 2-line increment on set up day. The next day and on to today, only returns a single linefeed. The option was a there on day 1, disappeared on day 2.
-“SPELL THAT” is now missing.
-“CORRECT THAT” is brain dead

Dictation so far is nearly flawless, minimal incorrect words besides company-specific terms and names.

Interface is abominable. HELP files useless/broken. Options do not exist. No functionality with Olympus Dictation software, other software. Locked to 1 user.
And what DID they carry over???? Dragon's random jumping to a new spot in your text and inserting new text there, instead of where You JUST clicked!!!

I purchased the medical dictation software directly. The product would frequently crash or fail to respond to dictation requiring frequent restarts. Very inefficient. I purchased the product with the understanding that I had lifetime access to dragon software. Fast forward two years, I needed to get and new work computer and was attempting to transfer all previous files and software to the new computer. I tried to do so with dragon but it wouldn't work. I contacted customer support. They informed my that the version I had no longer was available and I have to purchase a new version for an additional 900. This is incredibly frustrating because I purchased the software for 1200 with indefinite access to the software. Apparently, this only applies to the specific version you purchase. Knowing that software companies constantly upgrade and update their software they can pull the rug out from under you at any point. Not worth the risk. Buyer beware

It's the only product that kind of works. It will recognize most of what you say but frequently requires revision. Often needs to be restarted to get it to work, oh wait thats a bad thing.

Inaccurate.
Expensive, outright price gouging.
Terrible customer service.

I would expect something a lot better from a product with as much history as Dragon. With the advent of AI I do not see much evidence there is much under the hood except a hamster on a wheel.

Auto-texts and step-by-step commands are good. All the big medical words are in there. But that is what I would expect.

It is pretty woeful and makes plenty of errors. Some are silly contextual errors that Google dictate would not do. It makes errors in grammar, punctuation, and capitalisation.

Terrible. It is slow, glitchy and poorly-made. I have had nothing but trouble since using it and our entire department hates it and thinks it is a massive step down from the previous version.

None. There are no advantages to using this product. It is buggy and without quality control. It feels and acts like a beta product that got released by mistake.

We have been using Dragon Medical One for some months now. It does not work well and is very slow.

It is slower and prone to errors than the original version. The original version was terrible but it had some features that mitigated this. Dragon Medical One has removed these features. Dragon Medical One’s voice recognition has not improved despite what we were promised. Dragon Medical One is undeniably and unbelievably slower and not cost-effective at all.

Interface doesn’t work properly
As soon as I log in, I have the option of clicking to save my credentials and settings. This does nothing. Dragon Medical One is glitchy as soon as the program opens.

Error Log
As soon as I log in, every single time, it tells me that Dragon Medical One didn’t shut down correctly and asks if I want to send an error log. Dragon Medical One WAS shut down correctly. There is only one way to shut it down. Dragon Medical One will not let me close it any other way. Second glitch upon starting the program.

Spell Out Command
The SPELL OUT function for unusual or difficult words doesn’t work. The old Dragon had a SPELL command. A window would open then you could spell out tricky words. The letters would appear. You could edit the word. Once you were happy with the result, you could use the word. The new version doesn’t have the window. The new version just puts the letters directly into place after a two-second pause. If the letters are wrong, you need to start all over again.

Spell Out Command Corrections (unnecessary spacing)
The SPELL OUT command does not accept corrections properly either. If I say SPELL OUT ALPHA MIKE ECHO, Dragon Medical One will often give me ARME instead of AME (see below for that particular bug). If I say CORRECT THAT, it MIGHT give the right letters as one of the options BUT BUT BUT, it puts a space between each letter. So, I ask for AME, it gives me ARME, I correct it to AME but it then gives me A M E. Putting a space between each letter is pointless and I have no idea how this is helpful to anyone. W h y w o u l d t h e y d o t h i s ? N o o n e t y p e s l i k e t h i s. It serves no purpose. All I can think is that someone didn’t pay attention when creating/testing Dragon Medical One.

Errors in NATO Alphabet
Dragon Medical One tries to support the NATO Phonetic Alphabet but fails. Often, a SPELL OUT command puts in random letters such as R (R is very common) after a word ending in a vowel sound. ALPHA, BRAVO DELTA OSCAR PAPA are the ones that spring to mind but other letters too.

Record Macro Option removed.
The original program had a RECORD MACRO option whereby the mouse movements and clicks could be recorded and used for functional commands such as opening windows or changing settings within a window. Dragon Medical One has removed this option. The substitutes are cumbersome and slow (see below about slowness) and don’t always work.

They usually involve using a Find (Control-F), then tabbing to a button to click. Each command is slooooow and putting in multiple slow commands means that it is faster just to find the mouse, put it down on the workboard, do all the clicking myself, then put the mouse back. Removing the ability to record macros has just made a bad program even worse.

Microphone switches off for no reason
The old dragon had a WAKE UP/GO TO SLEEP command for the microphone. Dragon Medical One does not (not quite true—see below for a laugh at how stupid the designers were). Instead, it will randomly turn off the microphone for no obvious reason. At first, I thought it was timing out but then I started checking the clock. It is not a time-out. It just switches off for no reason. Time is wasted watching the program like a hawk to make sure this does not happen. Time is wasted using the mouse to turn it back on.

Time wasted waiting for commands and corrections
Time is a big thing. Apart from the slow reaction time of Dragon Medical One, another reason it is so slow to use is that I need to watch it all the time to check nothing has gone wrong.

We are a medical laboratory. We cannot afford the mistakes that Dragon Medical One keeps making. So, I have to give a command, wait for it to happen, then correct it, wait for the correction and repeat the process until Dragon Medical One finally gets the right command or text (see below about Dragon Medical One not recognising or ignoring commands).

The combination of constant supervision and lag time for Dragon Medical One to react means my work is slowed down considerably. I am tempted to say “incredibly” because I almost cannot believe Dragon Medical One is so slow. It is literally almost incredible to me. If someone else had told me how slow it would be I would have not believed it. The only reason I can believe it now is that I have seen it for myself.

Wake Up/Go to Sleep
Dragon Medical One has many bugs but the one I “love” the most is the option to turn the microphone back on: Once the microphone is off, it won’t hear the command to turn the microphone back on! This is not a bug in the technical sense of the word. It is a complete failure of planning and quality control.

Voice Recognition is terrible
The voice recognition of Dragon Medical One has not improved in any noticeable way. I have been using the program for several weeks now and the promised improvements have not arrived.

Old version was better
Several useful features of the old dragon have been lost so Dragon Medical One is actually worse than the original. Not improvement in voice recognition at any functional level and loss of the ability to fix the errors.

Loss of intuitive commands
The old program had many intuitive commands. If I say DELETE [WORD], it would find that word and then delete it. Likewise: PRESS CONTROL [A, B, C, X, V, Z et cetera]. These things have been removed for no reason. If I try to give an obvious command like that, it will type out the command instead. The commands existed in the original version so someone has gone to great effort to remove these benefits from Dragon Medical One.

Slow program
It is soooo sloooow! Slower than the original version. Dragon Medical One is undeniably slow!

Failure to learn my voice after several months.
Dragon Medical One is supposed to learn my voice and improve. It has not. Also, it is incompatible with many applications. Sometimes, it will not input words until I tap the touch-screen. This sort of prompts the words to appear. If I say something in those applications and Dragon Medical One gets it wrong, I won’t know until I tap the touch-screen. After that, there is NO WAY TO FIX DRAGON’S MISTAKE! Dragon Medical One is learning the errors instead of the corrections. This is starting to make Dragon Medical One unusable as the errors are becoming more common than the corrections.


Failure of Correct That Command
CORRECT THAT is frequently used (because Dragon Medical One is very inaccurate) and often fails (because Dragon Medical One is very prone to glitches). Particularly annoying is when it mishears me and think I said CORRECT HAND or CORRECT MAT or some other such nonsense. This means the moment to ‘teach’ is lost (not the Dragon Medical One is a actually learning anything). The learning, if it is happening at all, is learning the mistakes rather than the corrections. Give it a year and Dragon Medical One will become unusable due to this learning pattern.

Failure to recognise its own commands/ignoring its own commands
Dragon Medical One does not recognise its own commands. Often, I give a command, the busy/thinking icon appears for two seconds, then nothing happens. Or it types out the command instead of obeying it. Sometimes, I even get the message telling me that a specific command has been recognised (it even tells me which command)…then NOTHING happens. It didn’t not hear me or mishear me. Dragon Medical One hears the command, acknowledges the command by name and then does nothing about it.

And Dragon Medical One is so slow I need to wait several seconds to check if the command failed or if Dragon Medical One is simply slow to obey.

Failure to react to commands
Related to this: Sometimes I will say something, I get the busy/thinking symbol for two seconds, then nothing. No text, no mistyped text just nothing. It heard me, it thought about what I said and then it ignored me.

Inconsistent microphone sensitivity
Sometimes I have to shout. Sometimes, it hears my voice. Sometimes, it turns faint background noise into imaginary words.

Transfer Text box
There is a single new “feature” in Dragon Medical One. It is a text box which will sometimes appear for no obvious reason. The words I say will sometimes be put into this text box instead of the window I am trying to use. Closing the box doesn’t help. Clicking of the field I want to type into doesn’t help. Sometimes, this text box will just open for no reason. Words appear in it. I have the option of transferring the text but that means I have to click (AGAIN!) on the place I want my words to appear then transfer the text. This wastes so much time and there is no way to turn it off. I can stop it being the default but I cannot turn it off completely.

This is especially annoying as I have to wait for the slow Dragon Medical One program to obey my command to transfer the text.

Comparison to using a two finger typist
As just a typing program, I am LITERALLY faster and more accurate with two fingers. Just to make that clear, I repeat:

Dragon Medical One is slower and worse than two-finger typing.

Comparison to a touch-typist
To put this into perspective…

I used to do my job with a typist transcribing my words. I would get through EIGHT (8) times more work in a single shift. Eight times more work. Consider this when doing the maths. Dragon Medical One means you will need eight times as many people to get the job done because Dragon Medical One is slow and full of bugs and has removed the features of the previous version which made it usable (please understand—the previous version was bad but nowhere near as useless as Dragon Medical One).

Failure of Quality Control
I feel like there has been no quality control in this product. It is buggy to the extreme. These errors should never have made it into production. Dragon Medical One feels like a beta-level program that was shipped out in a hurry.

Worse still is the fact that they went to a lot of effort to remove the good features of the old program. Someone thought it was a good idea to waste time and money making Dragon Medical One WORSE than its predecessor.

Summary
If anyone is management is considering buying Dragon Medical One, DON’T!

• Dragon Medical One is slower than the original Dragon (which was still very slow)
• Dragon Medical One makes more errors.
• Dragon Medical One has removed the features of the old version which made it usable (but still terrible to use)
• Dragon Medical One is, demonstrably, eight times slower than using a typist. As a manger, you will need to budget for eight times as many staff to use this program.
• Dragon Medical One is slower than a two-finger typist.

My Android Auto has better voice recognition. If Google or Apple make a voice recognition program, it is probably better quality, more reliable, faster and less error-prone than Dragon Medical One. Use it instead.

Very useful tool, saves me a lot of time every day in the clinic. Any time invested in learning how to use it, will pay off greatly (really good ROI).

High quality speech recognition, ability to navigate Electronic medical records, advanced features, such as train vocabulary, auto-text.

It takes some time and effort to learn how to use advanced features, fortunately, thee are plenty of training videos and materials easily available, including in dragon medical one itself.