Gold Coast Health's neurology team was waiting 4 to 6 weeks for transcriptions. Dr. Saman Heshmat explains what changed when that delay disappeared.
In a busy neurology clinic, the gap between a consultation happening and its documentation reaching GPs and primary care practitioners is not a minor inconvenience. It affects clinical decisions, care coordination, and the patient's experience of the system.
For Dr. Saman Heshmat's team at Gold Coast Health, that gap was 4 to 6 weeks. Traditional dictation and transcription services created delays that were simply accepted as the cost of doing business — until they were not.
The overbooked nature of clinic environments added pressure to an already strained process — and the impact was felt not just by the team, but by patients waiting for updates from their neurologist.
After adopting Lyrebird, the most immediate change was the speed of communication with GPs and primary care practitioners. What had taken weeks now happened the same day, or faster.
The accuracy improvement mattered equally. Medical terminology in neurology is complex and specialised, and previous transcription services introduced errors that required review and correction. Lyrebird handled complex clinical terms accurately, even across varying accents and acoustic environments.
Dr. Heshmat also noted potential for Lyrebird to serve as a learning tool for junior doctors — providing accurate, readily available records of consultations to support clinical communication training and help developing clinicians understand medical terminology in real-world contexts.
