At HIMSS17 Nuance Reveals How Artificial Intelligence is Solving Clinicians’ Administrative Burden

ORLANDO, FL – February 20, 2017 — Nuance Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: NUAN) today announced results that demonstrate clinicians can save up to 45% on documentation time and improve quality scores up to 36% using artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled solutions. Powered by advances in the cloud and cognitive computing, Nuance’s next-generation speech and language understanding solutions make it easier for clinicians to quickly capture complete patient information in electronic health records (EHRs) using technology that amplifies their intelligence and works in the background to complement patient care rather than compete with it.

Clinical Documentation up to 45% Faster
Dragon® Medical One, Nuance’s cloud-based clinical speech platform, leverages machine learning honed over three decades and deep neural networks to deliver a compelling user experience from day one. The new era of AI improves on already high levels of accuracy of Nuance’s core speech recognition, providing enhanced responsiveness, acoustics, environmental controls, and an additional 30% drop in errors, which saves clinicians up to 45% on documentation time. These game-changing efficiencies have not gone unnoticed by healthcare providers. Since February 2016, the number of healthcare organizations using Nuance’s cloud-based speech recognition has doubled, and 97% of clinicians say they would recommend it to a colleague.

Real-Time Advice Improves Quality
Nuance’s next-generation computer-assisted physician documentation (CAPD) leverages clinical data from the cloud, algorithms that learn distinctive patterns, and facts and evidence to ask physicians the right question at the right time. This happens at remarkable speeds, resulting in huge gains in accuracy, context, and understanding. This enables CAPD to proactively support physicians, coders and clinical documentation specialists in delivering better care and more accurate documentation from the first words spoken.

Nuance CAPD solutions prompt the care team during documentation when information elsewhere in a patient’s record adds up to a condition that may cause clinical or compliance implications downstream. For example, in cases like sepsis, which can be hard to identify, this proactive intelligent advisor saves more than time, it has enabled clinicians to respond and intervene early, which can save lives.

Recently, a large integrated delivery network (IDN) using Nuance’s integrated cloud-based speech and CAPD reported impressive results. Physicians are better able to capture the complexity of patient cases in documentation, and that positively impacts publicly reported quality measures and reimbursement as follows:

• Improved documentation of patients with extreme severity of illness by 36%
• Improved details on the patients with the highest risk of mortality by 24%
• Generated up to $55 revenue improvement per patient admission with increased specificity

“I see the technology being our co-pilot. In a world now where flying the airplane is way too complex for any one human being to manage on their own, the computer should be my co-pilot to keep me alert, keep me apprised of the situation, warn me when there are dangers coming down the pike and then execute on orders when that needs to happen,” said David Y. Ting, MD, CMIO, Massachusetts General Physicians Organization.

“We make it easier for physicians to interact naturally and capture the complexities of each patient, while also bringing actionable events back to the physician. The real intelligence comes from years of research and testing in Nuance labs to create a better process that leverages voice-enabled assistants and AI tools to give time back to the physician through a much more satisfying experience,” said Joe Petro, senior vice president of Healthcare research and development, Nuance. “We want documentation to be the least difficult part of their day.”

Voice-Enabled Virtual Assistants on the Rise
Further proof of the impact and adoption of advanced solutions in healthcare, physicians at Landmark Hospitals have found Nuance’s customized conversational virtual assistant, Florence, saves them time and makes it easier to enter patient orders. Florence can listen to physicians, understand their orders and anticipate what is needed to help them complete frequent, repetitive tasks much more quickly, such as orders for medications, labs or imaging.

Watch this video – A side-by-side comparison of Dr. Anthony Sagel, CMIO of Landmark Hospitals, demonstrates how using Florence to complete orders instead of traditional computerized physician order entry (CPOE) improves the physician experience:

• The virtual assistant saved 35% of time in the initial pilot, and now saves up to 50% on complex orders
• Reduced keystrokes from 87 clicks to 0 in just 20 orders
• On a national scale, the impact would amount to 22.6 million hours saved for physicians a year based on radiology, medication and lab orders in the US alone

Bringing Virtual Scribes into the Mainstream
Nuance is also leveraging its deep learning and AI technology in partnership with a select group of leading hospitals to develop a next-generation Virtual Scribe solution to help reduce the overwhelming administrative burden on physicians while fundamentally changing the dynamics of the traditional medical scribe market. Today, many provider organizations are rapidly adding medical scribes to help reduce physician burnout and enable clinicians to focus more on direct patient care than on documentation. With Nuance’s Virtual Scribe solution, this support can be made available to many more provider organizations regardless of where they practice, their specialty area or the EHR they use. This evolution of clinical documentation supports clinicians while also fully adhering to strict patient privacy and data security requirements.

HIMSS17 Try-it Station
These advanced technologies can be put to the test in a “Try-it Station” at the HIMSS Annual Convention and Exhibition February 20-24 in Nuance booth #2546 where Nuance voice-enabled tools powered by AI will filter noise, listen, understand and offer real-time advice in completing patient records.

About Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more information, please visit nuance.com. Connect with Nuance on social media through the healthcare blog, What’s next, as well as LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Trademark reference: Nuance Dragon Medical, Dragon Medical Advisor, CAPD are registered trademarks or trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other company names or product names referenced herein may be the property of their respective owners.