Paramedic PapersHome Operations & systems What paramedics want from voice-to-text ePCRs
Operations & systems
What paramedics want from voice-to-text ePCRs
Canadian Paramedic User Requirements for Speech Recognition-Aided Documentation
Applied Clinical Informatics · 2026-09-29 · Added 3 October 2026
A mixed-methods survey of 323 Canadian paramedics plus 14 interviews identified and ranked the features paramedics want in speech-recognition documentation — 86% viewed it positively, with accuracy, patient interaction and compliance rated most important.
- Study type
- Qualitative
- Design
- Mixed-methods (questionnaire plus interviews)
- Participants
- 323 paramedic survey respondents, 14 interviews
- Main finding
- 86% (277/323) had positive perceptions of speech recognition; top-rated features were patient interaction, compliance, support, durability, training, accuracy, continuous improvement, training support, dictation and editing
- Caveat
- Opt-in self-selected respondents may over-represent tech-enthusiasts; no working-system evaluation
- Bottom line
- Context only
Why it matters in Australia (Medium relevance). A Canadian paramedic service, but the documentation burden and ePCR context are the same here, and Australian services are actively exploring dictation tools.
Learning goal
Understand how speech recognition documentation could affect patient interaction and record quality in my practice.
More
- Topic: Operations & systems
- Daily scan: 3 October 2026
Related papers on Operations & systems
-
AI telephone triage protocol for EMS calls
Protocol for the trIAje project, a Spanish retrospective cohort linking 2020–2024 dispatch records, ePCRs and health-registry data to evaluate and then improve AI-assisted telephone triage of time-sensitive conditions using NLP on dispatcher call text.
-
Patients report prehospital safety incidents
Structured telephone interviews 15–20 days after EMS transport across eight Spanish provincial services characterised patient safety incidents reported by patients and witnesses, covering near misses and no-harm events as well as harm.
-
Bigger crews work faster, don't save more
Korean nationwide cohort of 78,203 severe trauma patients found crews of three or more achieved better prehospital IV access (aOR 1.47) and scene times ≤10 minutes (aOR 1.09) than two-person crews, with no survival difference after adjustment.
-
Risk-score-guided conveyance safe in chest pain
A Dutch pragmatic RCT testing whether a prehospital risk score could guide ambulance conveyance in 5170 adults with undifferentiated chest pain — it was non-inferior to usual care for 3-day serious adverse events while increasing non-conveyance, cutting 30-day ED presentations and lowering costs.