Nuance’s Dictaphone Enterprise Speech System Drives Significant Increase in Medical Transcriptionist Productivity: Introducing Version 8.1

With No Change to Clinician Workflow, Healthcare Organizations Use Speech Recognition to Boost MT Productivity, Reduce Costs and Speed Clinical Documentation Turnaround Time

BURLINGTON, Mass., June 14, 2010 — Nuance Communications, Inc. today announces that healthcare organizations that have deployed Enterprise Turbo Speech are realizing significant increases in medical transcriptionist (MT) productivity, high speech volumes being processed through speech recognition and considerable transcription cost savings. Enterprise Turbo Speech is the background speech recognition component of the Dictaphone® Enterprise Speech System, which is designed for enterprise-wide, multi-specialty transcription use. Clinicians dictate as usual, while speech recognition produces highly accurate, formatted, draft documents for MT review and edit.

Today, Nuance also announces that a new version, 8.1, of Enterprise Turbo Speech will be available beginning Monday, June 28, 2010. This latest version allows customers to deploy Enterprise Turbo Speech in IT environments where Microsoft’s latest technology is already in use, expanding the System’s compatibility with popular healthcare enterprise IT systems, as well as easing implementation and ongoing system management.

On average, Enterprise Turbo Speech customers are processing 85 percent of their dictation volume through background speech recognition. Additionally, MTs are achieving productivity gains of up to 95 percent by editing documents versus traditional transcription. Customers’ success is highlighted by three unique healthcare organizations:

Baptist Healthcare Drives MT Productivity Gains of 65 Percent with Enterprise Turbo Speech

Baptist Healthcare System, one of the largest nonprofit healthcare systems in Kentucky, deployed the Enterprise Turbo Speech in 2008 with the goal of making MTs more productive in order to reduce outsourcing reliance and costs. Enterprise Turbo Speech has increased MT productivity by 65 percent at Baptist Hospital East and Baptist Hospital Northeast. In fact, the organizations are now processing 1.5 million more lines annually than before the speech implementation. Baptist Healthcare attributes its success to the power of speech recognition technology, comprehensive training support from Nuance, improved administrative reporting capabilities and limited impact on clinician workflow.

“We’ve realized improved productivity gains of up to 65 percent and faster medical report turnaround times,” reports Brenda Beckham, director of health information management, Baptist Hospital East. “When we first deployed Enterprise Turbo Speech, our team of MTs hit the ground running, thanks to the intuitive speech editing interface. Today, our entire MT team prefers editing versus typing documents from scratch.”

Florida Hospital’s Enterprise Turbo Speech Investment Covered by Savings in One Year of Utilization

Florida Hospital has incurred notable benefits from its implementation of Enterprise Turbo Speech. The System, which is used in combination with the Cerner electronic medical record (EMR) system, has helped to ensure that clinical documentation is available in a timely manner within the EMR. Depending on priority and enterprise-specific timelines, dictated reports are made available in the EMR within an average of 0.6 hours (for priority work) to an average of 6 hours for history and physical information (H&Ps). As a result of the productivity gains achieved by Florida Hospitals’ in-house MT team with Enterprise Turbo Speech, the Hospital has been able to eliminate 10 percent of its outsourced transcription work. In 12 months Florida Hospital has saved approximately $450,000 and expects ongoing cost savings through its work with Enterprise Turbo Speech.

“We’ve been using Enterprise Turbo Speech for one year across the eight sites of Florida Hospital. Without change to their previous workflow, more than 1,000 clinicians are dictating into the Enterprise Turbo Speech system, while behind the scenes, our medical transcriptionists are completing medical reports faster than they were one year ago, reducing turnaround time for H&Ps by 29 percent,” said Debbie Lewandowski, CMT director of medical transcription, Florida Hospital. “With Enterprise Turbo Speech we have been able to fully recover enough savings to cover our investment for the System itself in one year.”

Rockford Memorial Hospital Eliminates Outsourced MT Support with Enterprise Turbo Speech

Rockford Memorial Hospital is a 396-licensed-bed healthcare facility located in Rockford, IL. Since its deployment of Enterprise Turbo Speech in 2008, Rockford’s transcription department has increased its transcription volume, reduced costs associated with transcription by more than 15 percent per line, and has eliminated all reliance on outsourced MT support. Furthermore, Rockford is now able to meet its intended document turnaround time goals 99 percent of the time.

Dennis P. L’Heureux, senior vice president for planning and CIO of Rockford Health System, further accentuated Rockford Health System’s success with background speech recognition from Nuance by saying, “I always thought that speech recognition would make us more efficient, but I never thought that it would allow us to compete with off-shoring.”

Product Upgrade Information

For additional information on Enterprise Turbo Speech and the full Dictaphone Enterprise Speech System customers should contact their sales representatives. To learn more about leveraging the capabilities of complementary front-end speech recognition for clinical documentation without transcription (Enterprise Workstation), please visit: http://www.nuance.com/healthcare/products/enterprise_workstation.asp.

About Dictaphone Enterprise Speech System

The Dictaphone Enterprise Speech System, deployed on-site at healthcare organizations, is designed for enterprise-wide, multi-specialty transcription, and allows clinicians to dictate in the traditional way, while speech recognition technology translates dictation into a highly accurate, formatted draft document for transcriptionist review and edit. This approach avoids the more time-consuming and costly process of transcribing reports from scratch. The complete solution includes voice capture, background speech recognition, a transcription/editing tool, electronic signature, and distribution capabilities. Additionally, Dictaphone Enterprise Speech System customers can also deploy Enterprise Workstation, allowing clinicians to immediately self-edit, sign and share documents with other caregivers or with the patient; in this workflow, medical report creation is immediate.

Nuance’s Healthcare Business

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 5,000 healthcare provider organization 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 Dictaphone 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.