MEDITECH Joins Forces with Nuance to Deliver AI-Powered Virtual Assistants for Healthcare

With a constant eye toward improving both physician efficiency and the patient experience, MEDITECH, a leading, innovative Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendor, and Nuance Communications, Inc., the pioneer and leader in AI-powered solutions for more than 10,000 global healthcare organizations, announced MEDITECH is integrating Nuance’s Dragon Medical Virtual Assistant into MEDITECH Expanse. Building on a long history of innovation by the two companies, this integration will complement common clinician workflows by automating high value clinical and administrative tasks that will allow physicians to spend more time focused on, and improving, the patient experience.

MEDITECH showcased several of these virtual assistant-enabled workflows—that understand, analyze, and respond to human language to increase productivity and amplify human intelligence—through a proof of concept demonstration at the recent 2018 Physician and CIO Forum. These workflows enable physicians to seamlessly accomplish a number of common clinical workflow tasks including:

• Saving time by conversationally retrieving patient lists;
• Increasing efficiency by searching patient charts for lab results, vital signs, medications, and more using natural dialogue; and
• Improving productivity by queueing orders through intuitive voice-driven workflows.

“In the past decade, virtual assistants have become more and more ingrained in our everyday lives. MEDITECH is excited to bring the power of Nuance’s proven expertise in virtual assistants to the MEDITECH community through Expanse,” said Executive Vice President at MEDITECH, Hoda Sayed-Friel. “Using this seamless integration, providers can more efficiently and conveniently engage with the EHR using a conversational user interface. This work with Nuance continues to demonstrate MEDITECH’s commitment to improving the clinician and patient experience through the use of technology.”

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“When I am rounding, I regularly need to quickly access information in the chart and submit orders on the fly,” said Dr. Howard LeWine, MEDITECH Physician Consultant. “By using Nuance’s Virtual Assistant, I can easily ask for the chart information, such as last EKG or colonoscopy report, and order tests and medications without interrupting my interaction with the patient.”

Building on decades of experience in healthcare, its extensive market footprint, and applying Nuance technology that has supported many of the leading consumer, enterprise and automotive brands in the world, Nuance’s virtual assistant platform is optimized for the healthcare market with rich conversational dialogue management and voice biometrics. The platform’s core capability builds on Dragon Medical, which is trusted by more than 500,000 clinicians worldwide to accurately create and communicate more than 300 million patient stories a year.

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“Clinicians want technology that is easy to use and that gives them more time back in their day to spend with the patients they care for,” said Peter Durlach, senior vice president, strategy and new business development, Healthcare division, Nuance Communications. “Leveraging our broad experience with developing virtual assistant technology for 6,500 leading consumer and enterprise brands that rely on Nuance, Nuance is building a future where care teams can utilize the next generation of Dragon Medical cloud capabilities to become even more productive, better informed and better served through the use of advanced conversational AI technologies.”

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To learn more about this strategic effort and see a demonstration of these AI technologies in action, visit MEDITECH booth #3921 and Nuance booth #3345 at HIMSS 2019, Orlando, Florida, February 11-15, 2019.