Speech recognition improves important reporting processes for public-safety services

By Richard Brown

Public-safety professionals play an important role in their communities, but there is a crucial part of their job that usually goes unnoticed—reporting. Even though it is often excluded from the flashy television dramas, reporting conducted by police officers, firemen and other first responders is one of the most important parts of ensuring criminals are punished and emergency situations are documented appropriately.

Yet, just like heavy administrative work impacts the productivity of business executives, lawyers, social workers, and financial advisors, first responders can easily become overwhelmed by paperwork, leading to long hours filing reports and limiting their time to complete other important duties. Ultimately, this can result in a rushed process, impacting their ability to file accurate reports in a timely manner.

Like many departments, the Chatham-Kent Police Service (CKPS) in Ontario, Canada, faced these types of challenges with its reporting process, but was quick to embrace technologies like speech recognition to increase its efficiency and the overall quality of reporting. For CKPS, speech recognition accelerates data collection and document creation for both constables and data entry specialists while improving the detail and accuracy of reports.

In the past, CKPS officers would dictate reports and send audio files to Civilian Data Entry (CDE) personnel, so that the recorded report could be typed out, word-for-word. This resulted in a significant backlog of case reports, which impacted quality and required extra time from both officers and CDEs to ensure that the information was accurate.

In an effort to make improvements, CKPS initiated an overhaul of this reporting process, incorporating upgraded dictation and speech-recognition software. This enabled officers to dictate their reports using their mobile device. Audio files could then be transcribed through the CKPS server, delivering a text transcript back to the officer. From there, the officer could edit the report text and make corrections before sending it to the CDEs. Before long, more than 70% of CKPS’ officers were using this new reporting system, and the early results demonstrated immediate improvements in the report-submission process.

Taking a closer look at CKPS’s adoption of speech-recognition technology, we can see some key benefits that emerged through its revamped reporting process, including improved quality of submitted reports and better time management, which allows officers to allocate more time to protecting and serving their community.

Accurate reports can go a long way toward quickly and effectively resolving cases. These reports may ultimately end up in the hands of a district attorney or judge, who expects all of the important details to be included. By using their voice to dictate their reports, officers and other first responders can capture their case notes as soon as an incident is concluded, when those important details that can ultimately impact a courtroom decision are still fresh in their minds. This level of detail and accuracy ultimately has a trickle-up effect, as lawyers and judges can take that information and make informed decisions.