i think you can dump audio files into dragon(nuance) and get the transcript back for data entry.

Yeah, I almost mentioned dragon but I didn't because I wanted to avoid anchoring the question. They seem to be (or were) a market favorite.

Yes but doing that takes some time, and then correcting the numerous errors takes more time. So it's not necessarily more cost effective than using template data entry forms. Some doctors now dictate, and then rely on transcription services which use speech recognition to generate a rough draft followed by human transcriptionists to fix most of the errors.