Nuance Announces New Version of eScription Platform for Computer Aided Medical Transcription

Customer-Driven Development Yields New Features for Improved Quality and Administrative Efficiency in Clinical Documentation for the Healthcare Enterprise

BURLINGTON, Mass., September 28, 2009 — Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), a leading supplier of speech solutions, today announced the availability of version 9 of its eScription on-demand platform for computer aided medical transcription (CAMT), a solution used by healthcare organizations to increase productivity and save costs associated with medical transcription (MT). The new version, which has been successfully deployed at multiple eScription customer sites since spring 2009, introduces enhancements to all five components of the eScription platform, including dictation, background speech recognition, editing and transcription, document distribution and electronic signature. Among its many new features, version 9 offers significant advancements in document quality review and administrator efficiency, benefiting organizations with in-house MT staff and fully outsourced models.

As part of its overall mission to help healthcare organizations continually improve their clinical documentation processes, Nuance worked closely with its customers to develop and execute on the more than 30 new features included in eScription version 9. A proven solution for enterprise-wide clinical documentation creation, Nuance’s eScription background speech recognition platform is processing more than 1.82 billion lines of transcription per year, an increase of more than 35 percent since one year ago, and is helping many healthcare organizations save millions of dollars over traditional transcription costs.

“We’ve been using the eScription platform for the past three years. As a multi-site healthcare organization, the eScription platform allows our medical transcriptionists – both in-house and outsourced to Focus Infomatics – to quickly create high-quality clinical documents that are easily accessible for review and distribution,” said Steve Griffin, assistant director, HIMS transcription, FirstHealth of the Carolinas. ”For our team, the most compelling feature that eScription version 9 offers is its enhanced administrative controls and quality assurance. Our team loves the standardized consistency of the drafts, loves the editing and access to documents, and beyond just being happy, our transcriptionists have, in some cases exceeded 100 percent productivity gains.

With the introduction of version 9, healthcare organizations now have:

• Enhanced Quality Assurance: New features offer consistency of standards, definable grading criteria, improved workflow, and updated reports. Quality review can now be completed directly within the eScription platform, eliminating the need for MTs to copy documents into other programs or utilize manual methods.
• Improved Transcription Workflow: Version 9 provides administrators with more powerful and flexible ways to save, search, retrieve, and compare documents, as well as to efficiently communicate transcription instructions directly to MTs. These features enhance usability and quality by giving administrators increased access to document workflow.
• Easier Configuration and Management: New configuration and management wizards enable simpler set-up across platform components; features include management of turnaround time priorities, voice capture, and document distribution to multiple facility sites, among others.
• More Options for Dictating Clinicians: In addition to telephony, digital dictation devices and the ability to do partial dictations into an electronic health record (EHR), clinicians can now utilize a PC microphone, with voice files uploaded directly to the background speech recognition system to produce drafts for editing.
• Even Higher Quality Draft Documents: Continual advances in eScription’s proprietary background speech recognition and natural language processing engines allow the eScription platform to produce increasingly higher quality drafts across a broader base of dictating clinicians within a healthcare organization, thereby increasing MT productivity and delivering accelerated cost savings and ROI for customers.

“By gaining early access to version 9 via the early adopter program and providing feedback during the development phase, we’ve contributed to what I consider to be a very strong solution,” said Jean Blain, HIM manager, transcription services, Eastern Connecticut Health Network. “We’ve found the MT instructions tool to be extremely helpful for improving communication with our MTs. Whereas before we had to send emails and make phone calls when something changed, we now input the information, and our MTs can easily see if the dictation they are working on has special instructions. Version 9 has been especially valuable for prioritizing documents that must meet faster turnaround times, as well as managing and tracking the document as it moves throughout the workflow.”

Customer input for the version 9 release was initiated at the 2008 Product Advisory Meeting, an annual event at which eScription customers identify, discuss and prioritize areas of need in clinical documentation. In the spring of 2009, eScription version 9 was introduced and tested at five early adopter customer sites including: Blessing Hospital (Quincy, IL), Eastern Connecticut Health Network (Manchester, CT), FirstHealth of the Carolinas (Pinehurst, NC), Intermountain Healthcare (Salt Lake City, UT), and Solaris Health System (Edison, NJ) in preparation for general release.

“The latest version of the eScription on-demand platform caters to all touch points that contribute to high-quality clinical documentation, including the transcriptionist, the transcription manager and the clinician. Clinicians have more options for recording and reviewing medical records, transcriptionists have more quality assurance and editing tools and administrators are able to more effectively communicate priority and workflow commands,” said Peter Durlach, senior vice president product strategy and marketing, Nuance Healthcare. “Over the past year our team, including our eScription customers, has worked hard and cohesively to develop the enhancements that today make up version 9 of the eScription platform. We’re extremely pleased with the features made available as part of this offering.”

Version 9 Pricing and Availability
eScription version 9 is being deployed with all new customers and is currently available to all existing eScription customers at no additional charge. In addition to the eScription on-demand platform, Nuance Healthcare also offers an on-premise solution for background speech recognition, the Dictaphone Enterprise Speech System. Customers and prospective customers can view both eScription version 9 and the latest version 8 of Dictaphone Enterprise Speech System at the Nuance Booth (#1622) at the 2009 AHIMA Convention and Exhibit, October 5-7 in Grapevine, Texas.

About eScription
Whether a healthcare organization has an in-house staff of MTs or employs a fully outsourced approach to transcription, eScription background speech recognition is proven to deliver reduced document turnaround times, improved document consistency and quality, substantial cost savings and rapid ROI without requiring clinicians to change their dictation workflow. These proven results are critical to today’s most successful medical records departments, which are increasingly under pressure to operate more efficiently and save costs. With its ASP architecture, eScription requires little capital investment and IT support is minimized. In addition, once they have made the transition, most MTs using the eScription platform prefer speech editing to traditional transcription, which typically doubles their productivity while reducing physical strain. A testament to its high customer satisfaction, eScription has received a Best in KLAS award in the category of speech recognition for the past five consecutive years.

Nuance Healthcare
Nuance’s healthcare portfolio of proven, speech-enabled clinical documentation and communication solutions enable healthcare provider organizations to improve financial performance, enhance patient care, and increase patient safety. With more than 3,000 healthcare customers worldwide, Nuance has the experience and solutions that meet the individual needs of any size healthcare provider organization.

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance is a leading provider of speech and imaging 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 information and how they create, share and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications and professional services. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com.

Nuance, the Nuance logo and eScription are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other company names or product names may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

The statements in this press release, relating to future plans or future events or services, are forward-looking statements which are subject to specific risks and uncertainties. These could involve particular market trends, competition factors and other risks described in the documents submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The actual results, events and services may vary significantly from the forecasts. The reader is warned not to rely on these forward-looking statements without reservation, since these are simply reflections of the current situation.