Method and apparatus for providing prescription services using voice recognition

Abstract

An automated prescription transcription and dispatch service using voice recognition and a customizable, user-friendly telephony interface is provided. A doctor or other medical personnel can call a prescription services system, and provide spoken prescription information. The call can be placed directly to the prescription services system using the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) or Voice-over-IP (VoIP) connection, or can be forwarded to the prescription services system from a telephone number corresponding to a pharmacy. The system prompts the user through audible menus to provide prescription and patient information. The spoken information is digitized, recorded, and stored in the prescription services system, and then transcribed into textual format. The transcribed prescriptions are then transmitted to the doctor or medical personnel via variety of communication methodologies, such as fax, e-mail, XML, and electronic data interchange, for confirmation, review, and record keeping purposes. Further, the transcribed prescriptions are transmitted to a pharmacy, using similar communication methodologies, for review and further processing. The caller can call the prescription services system to review the spoken and transcribed prescription information stored from a previous session. The prescription services system can be integrated into existing pharmacy management systems using electronic data interchange (EDI) and other data exchange protocols.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.