How to program a Speechmike III with Dragon Medical Practice Edition

This how to guide will walk you through the process of programming the Philips SpeechMike III with Dragon Medical Practice Edition in 4 simple steps.
The SpeechMike III will allow you to automate various features of Dragon Medical Practice Edition, which will no doubt super-charge your productivity.  Whether you’re navigating through a template, opening applications, inserting text or invoking hotkeys, the Philips SpeechMike III will allow you to get more done is less time.

Illustrated screen shots have been added for your convenience.

Connect your Philips SpeechMike 3

Connect your Philips SpeechMike to any open USB port on your computer. Generally, the USB ports on the back of your PC have more power allocated to them, so I would recommend using one of them, if possible.

Download & Install the Philips Device Control Center

Philips Device Control Center is used to customize the behavior of the SpeechMike III, as well as the Foot Control device for various applications. Once the PDCC is installed, the default profile is set for Dragon Medical Practice Edition, making it easy for new users to begin using the device. This simply means, the buttons will already be pre-programmed to operate the basic functionality Dragon.

NOTE: Some documentation will refer to the Philips Device Control Center as Speech Control. They are both the same application. 
Click Here to download the Philips Device Control Center. As of August 2020 Version 4.3.430.11 is the latest.

Once the download has completed, go to where it was saved and extract (unzip) the folder to display the contents.

Double-click the PhilipsDeviceControlCenterSetup to begin the installation.

A Philips Device Control Center Install Shield Wizard will appear. This wizard will walk you through the installation process. Select Next to begin.

Follow the prompts in the wizard to complete the installation. This just involves pressing the next button a few times.

You can minimize the Device Control Center for now, we will return to it in Step 4.

Create a profile in Dragon Medical Practice Edition 

In this step, we will create a user profile in Dragon Medical Practice Edition using the Philips SpeechMike III as the dictation source. For this guide, I am assuming that you have not created a Dragon profile before and are starting fresh. If you have already been using Dragon with a different dictation source, I recommend that you add an additional dictation source to your existing profile, selecting the USB input option.

Otherwise, follow these steps.
Open Dragon Medical Practice Edition. If this is your first time opening DMPE, a Profile Creation wizard will appear. Note: If the profile creation wizard does not automatically appear, go to Profile > Open User Profile and select New

Select [Next] to begin the profile creation process. The wizard will ask your name, age, region, vocabulary, and accent. Choose the option in the lists that best fit you.

You will get to a screen that asks //How do you talk to your computer?, choose [USB] under the Microphone category then Next to continue.

Your selections will be displayed, please make sure you’ve chosen the best options that fit your needs and select Create. Dragon Medical Practice Edition will begin creating your profile based on the options selected.

You will be prompted to Check your Microphone, select Next to adjust your audio settings. Select Start Volume Check to begin the process. When you do so, the text in the box above will illuminate. Read the text in that box until you hear a beep.

Once you’ve heard the beep, you will advance to the next window. Select Start Quality Check and read the text in the box until you hear a second beep. Select Next to advance to the training options.

Dragon will now prompt you to begin training. Select Show text with prompting, select a story and read the story into the Philips SpeechMike III until training has completed. This process will take approximately 8-10 minutes.

Once you’ve completed the training process, your profile will be created and you will be able to dictate into Dragon Medical Practice Edition using your Philips SpeechMike III. As mentioned in Step 2, your SpeechMike III is now pre-programmed to control the basic functionality of DMPE, like controlling the microphone and playback. Proceed to Step 4 if you wish to customize the SpeechMike III to meet your specific needs.

Customizing the Philips SpeechMike III

As I mentioned above, the microphone is now programmed to work with Dragon Medical Practice Edition. But of course, you can change the default configuration to meet your specific needs. Follow the instructions below to do so:

Open the Philips Device Control Center Application, and select the Application Control tab.

There are three columns in the Application Control Tab:
* Name – This is the button on the SpeechMike that can be programmed
* Pressed – This column represents the action that will take place once the button is pressed
* Released – This column represents the action that will take place on the button is released
- To change the default settings, select the ellipsis box … next to the desired action (i.e. Pressed or Released)
- Once the ellipsis box is selected, an Edit Operation window will open. To make a change to the default settings or to add new settings, use the Add, Edit and Delete buttons.

The edit and delete options are self-explanatory. If you select [Add], an Operation Step Editor dialog window will appear with 6 options:

Hotkey – This option will allow you to program a hotkey or a combination of hotkeys to the button selected.
Text – This option will allow you to insert a block of text when the button is selected
Start Application – This option will allow you to automatically open a particular application on your computer when the button is selected
Mouse Button – This option will allow you to use a mouse command when the button is selected
Dragon NaturallySpeaking Command – This option will invoke a built-in Dragon command when the button is selected
Delay - This option will tell the system to wait for a specified period of time when the button is selected

Make your selection, then choose Next to return to the edit operation screen. Select Apply to transfer your new settings to the SpeechMike III

Close the Philips Device Control Center and you’re all set!

Note: The PDCC must be running in the background and set to active in order for the device to recognise the commands. Make sure it’s running in your System Tray.