Pulmonology dictation software for clinic, PFT, sleep and bronchoscopy notes

A pulmonology practice dictates in several modes. Clinic visits for COPD, asthma and bronchiectasis list inhalers by generic name, exacerbations and spirometry. Pulmonary function test reads interpret FEV1, FVC and diffusing capacity. Nodule visits apply the Fleischner guidance to a size and a date. Sleep medicine reads a polysomnogram for obstructive sleep apnea. Interstitial lung disease visits weigh nintedanib or pirfenidone. Bronchoscopy notes describe airways and a bronchoalveolar lavage. Inhaler names such as umeclidinium and vilanterol are where a general tool gives up.

Pulmonology words general dictation gets wrong

General dictation software is trained on everyday speech, so pulmonology terms come out as near misses. Each row below is a misheard form listed in the VoicePrivate Healthcare dictionary and the term it is corrected to:

Drug names get extra care. A misheard word that sounds like a drug in the dictionary is matched to it, but a real drug name is never changed into another drug, so tiotropium is not turned into ipratropium.

What choosing Pulmonology changes

In the Mac app, Settings has a Medical specialty picker with 32 specialties plus General. Choosing Pulmonology does two things on your computer:

• It gives recognition the 26 Pulmonology core terms to expect: COPD, spirometry, FEV1, FVC, diffusing capacity, tiotropium, umeclidinium, vilanterol, fluticasone, budesonide, formoterol, albuterol, azithromycin, emphysema, bronchiectasis, pulmonary nodule, Fleischner, polysomnogram, obstructive sleep apnea, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, nintedanib, pirfenidone, bronchoscopy, bronchoalveolar lavage, pleural effusion, pulmonary rehabilitation.
• A long misheard word that is a near miss of one of those core terms is matched to it instead of a general word.

The Healthcare dictionary tags 733 terms to Pulmonology, counted October 2026, and all 74,000+ medical terms stay available whichever specialty you choose. On Windows there is no specialty picker: the full medical dictionary and its corrections apply to every note.

Pulmonology notes by type

Example: dictating a COPD follow up with PFTs

Here is the visit dictated one section at a time. Every bold term is in the VoicePrivate medical dictionary.

1. In the HPI box, press Command+Shift+Space and say: "Sixty nine year old former smoker with COPD and emphysema, one exacerbation since spring treated with prednisone." Press the hotkey again.
2. In the data section, press Command+Shift+Space and say: "Spirometry today, FEV1 1.4 liters, 52 percent predicted, FVC 2.9 liters. Diffusing capacity 48 percent." Press the hotkey again.
3. In the imaging section, press Command+Shift+Space and say: "CT shows a 6 millimeter solid pulmonary nodule in the right upper lobe. Follow up per Fleischner in 6 to 12 months." Press the hotkey again.
4. In the plan, press Command+Shift+Space and say: "Continue umeclidinium and vilanterol daily, add fluticasone. Albuterol as needed. Refer to pulmonary rehabilitation." Press the hotkey again.

Each time you press the hotkey to stop, VoicePrivate transcribes on your computer and pastes the finished text at your cursor. Text does not appear while you are still speaking. It arrives in one block when you stop, so read the values and doses once and sign.

Getting the text into your EHR

VoicePrivate works with any EHR that accepts a paste, because it pastes through the clipboard rather than through a plug in. That includes Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner), athenahealth, eClinicalWorks and NextGen. The workflow is the same everywhere:

1. Click into the note field, such as the HPI, assessment or plan box.
2. Press Command+Shift+Space on Mac or Ctrl+Shift+Space on Windows and dictate.
3. Press the hotkey again. The text is pasted where your cursor is, and with Auto-copy to clipboard off, the default, your previous clipboard contents are put back.

If your EHR runs inside Citrix or another remote desktop, the remote session must allow clipboard redirection from your computer. Most IT teams can turn this on per user. VoicePrivate runs on the local Mac or PC, not inside the remote session. The EHR dictation guide covers each system.

Privacy, stated as facts

VoicePrivate processes speech on the computer it is installed on. Audio never leaves the computer and nothing is sent to a cloud service for transcription. Your notes live in your EHR, the same as if you had typed them. Your practice still decides how the EHR itself is secured and what agreements it has with vendors. With Auto-save transcriptions on, which is the default, each dictation is also kept in the app's Library on that computer. Turn it off in Settings if you do not want a Library copy. Auto-copy to clipboard is off by default; if you turn it on, the text also stays on the clipboard after it is pasted, so leave it off if the EHR should hold the only copy.

Price

Healthcare Edition is $297 a year or $34.99 a month for one clinician, on Mac or Windows. Every specialty vocabulary is included. There is no free trial. Individual monthly and annual plans have a 30-day money-back guarantee on the first payment. Practices with 2 to 20 clinicians can buy team seats.

Pulmonology dictation questions

Pulmonology connects to allergy and immunology dictation for asthma, infectious disease dictation for pneumonia and TB, radiology dictation for chest imaging and ENT dictation for sleep surgery.