Building on the huge success the Olympus brand and in particular the Olympus DS-7000 Digital Voice Recorder has enjoyed in the SA medical market over the years the NHLS (National Health Laboratory Service) have recently started rolling out this solution to all Pathology Labs in Gauteng through Olympus’s accredited fulfillment partner OTB (Office Technology Brokers).
Olympus Audio SA has a long history of dealing with pathology labs in Southern Africa, both government and private. A couple years ago the WC Forensic Pathology Services upgraded to the then brand new DS-7000 Digital Recorders and AS-7000 Transcription Kits (Cutting Edge Olympus Tech for Forensic Path Services). Pathcare, the biggest private pathology practices in SA have long trusted Olympus with all their dictation requirements (Pathcare entrusts Olympus with all their dictation requirements).
“The National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) is the largest diagnostic pathology service in South Africa with the responsibility of supporting the national and provincial health departments in the delivery of healthcare.
The NHLS provides laboratory and related public health services to over 80% of the population through a national network of laboratories. “
With this kind of workload and responsibility the equipment being used in the labs is essential to providing quick and accurate reports for South Africa’s citizens. The NHLS ultimately decided on the tried and tested Olympus DS-7000 Digital Voice Recorder for the pathologists and the AS-7000 Transcription Kit for the typists. In total close to 80 DS-7000’s and 30 AS-7000’s have been installed in the last 6 months across Gauteng – joining the established Olympus systems in the NHLS labs in the Western Cape and KZN. The current intake of devices has upgraded a combination of old analogue (tape) systems as well as older digital systems.
Both the DS-7000 and AS-7000’s are supplied with the award winning ODMS (Olympus Dictation Management System) software, which allows for an infinite amount of configuration setups. With the future vision to connect all NHLS labs around the country to one singular system we used the network configuration (single file sharing server which all PC’s point towards). For now each lab is running their own SME file server, this is due to limited bandwidth across the overall NHLS network at this point in time. Once this has been resolved the infrastructure is in place to connect the labs together and share the workload across different locations – which is the ultimate goal.
The DS-7000 / AS-7000 system also allows for work to be created outside of the main workflow and sent in, as if it was created right there in the office– something that is invaluable for users that work from home or out of the office. The Dictation App paired with the FlashAir card makes this all possible.
Olympus Audio S.A are proud to join the “rest” of the Olympus family (microscopes and camera’s) within the NHLS – helping the countries biggest laboratory to continue to provide the critical reports they do on a daily basis.
