Voice Charting for Perio

1-17-17 Update:

The purpose of this page is to consolidate all the various sources of files and information about the new, free, Open Dental plug-in that allows voice entry for perio charting. This is not an official Open Dental product but was written as an open source plug-in by one of Open Dental’s software engineers, Chris McGehee.  (I hereby nominate him for the Nobel Prize in Dentistry – as soon as they get one!)

As you can see from the brief video below, it works!  I have been playing with voice entry charting for at least 20 years and spend a fair amount of money trying to find something I could really use for perio charting.  This is the first one that I have seen that seems to fulfill all the requirements:

  1. no equipment needed; all software

  2. works with all the microphones I have tried (total of only 3; two wired and one wireless)

  3. no training required – works “out of the box” – although you can train it if it does not recognize all your commands (see below)

  4. repeats back in the headset what it heard you enter (the pockets) and your position on the perio chart (tooth number)

  5. totally hands-free – can navigate, start and stop with only your voice

  6. did I mention its free?

Here are some useful links relating to this plug-in:

  1. Download page

  2. Voice training page

  3. Open Dental perio charting from manual

  4. Open Dental webinar on perio charting

  5. Link to pdf file of voice commands you can use   (created by Rick Liftig, DMD FAGD)

Bonnie the hygienist is a soprano and the the perio chart voice recognition didn’t not pick up 100% of her charting until she did the retraining (see link #2 above).  She simply read a paragraph and – presto! – got 100% accuracy!  Only problem – and this is the reason for this addendum – she retrained without her mask!  She had to retrain a second time with her mask on.  Good thing it was fast and easy cuz Bonnie is a little temperamental – she is a hygienist, you know!