Nuance introduces SpeechMagic 7

Hospital-friendliness in large scale: New speech recognition platform marks milestone in transition to voice-based information capturing

Vienna, AUSTRIA – November 12, 2009 - Nuance Communications, Inc., a leading supplier of speech solutions, today introduced SpeechMagic 7 which supports 25 recognition languages. The speech recognition platform is set to revolutionise clinical documentation by facilitating large-scale implementations, high out-of-the-box performance and healthcare specific workflow support. Easy adaptation and roll-out is supported via optimised integration tools in health-IT systems of all kinds. The healthcare industry’s trend towards large-scale speech processing infrastructure is facilitated by a robust, multi-user and multi-network technology. Because it makes speech recognition so easy to use and to deploy, SpeechMagic 7 is set to mark the milestone where the healthcare industry turns from keyboard and mouse to speech recognition as the preferred way of information capturing.

“In the future every hospital will have a speech recognition infrastructure. It is essential for highly productive information management, treatment quality and cost-efficiency.” said Marcel Wassink, Vice President of Nuance Healthcare in EMEA. “SpeechMagic 7 supports the progression to an extensive use of frontend speech recognition through improved user-specific adaptation, enabling the system to better learn the behaviour of each user and consequently produce better output.”

Top ten innovations in SpeechMagic 7:

1. Higher initial performance due to expanded recognition vocabularies and improved learning algorithms. The healthcare-specific recognition vocabularies now feature 100,000 words with a capacity of up to 130,000 words. This represents an increase of 35% over previous ContTexts.
2. Key performance indicators (KPI) measure productivity and turnaround times for each user and implement the changes to optimise the individual use of speech recognition.
3. Support for Windows 7 and the latest versions of Oracle and SQL Server databases. Linux-based thin clients complete SpeechMagic’s unique Citrix offering.
4. One-click installation enables on-demand deployment which significantly reduces roll-out effort in large-scale set-ups.
5. New deployment concept means that users no longer require administration rights to setup and update. This increases IT security.
6. “Down-time free” system updates without interrupting users in their daily working routine.
7. Native 64-bit support for client components allows integration with high-memory applications, such as Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS).
8. New Edit Control Adapter API allows integration with virtually all edit controls, providing integration partners new possibilities to speech-enable their health IT systems.
9. System ensures use of optimal input device to avoid unintended change of the audio configuration, e.g. if a user plugs in an additional USB device such as a webcam or a smart phone. This ensures best possible recognition and avoids unnecessary administration efforts.
10. Deployment in virtualised environments, which has become popular in many hospitals.

A reflection of hospital requirements

“SpeechMagic 7 has been conceived on the basis of the needs and feedback of over 100 integration partners over the years, thus fully reflecting the needs of hospitals across Europe and other regions of the world. The result is a future-proof speech recognition platform able to support the expected changes in the healthcare IT environment – including virtualization environments, Windows 7 and large-scale deployment in health-IT infrastructures of any kind”, says Gernot Puck, Product Manager at Nuance Healthcare.

Fifteen years of speech recognition in healthcare have proven that the large-scale deployment of frontend speech recognition leads to the highest efficiency gains and cost savings. Doctors can manage their information and documentation workload completely independently and go from dictation to validation at once. The Telemark Hospital in Norway thus saves 900,000 EUR per year, the radiology department at the University Hospital of Tuebingen, Germany, reports savings of 150,000 EUR annually and the Vejle Hospital in Denmark increased overall productivity by 7%.

“These achievements together with the feedback from our partners and end users convinced us that the future is in frontend speech recognition and while SpeechMagic 7 will continue to support all working scenarios, we have focused on driving the most promising and beneficial method forward even more strongly”, highlighted Gernot Puck.

SpeechMagic 7 has been released for integration with health-IT systems. The first documentation solutions based on SpeechMagic 7 are expected to be available for the market from early 2010. Hospitals should check dates, availability and upgrade offerings with their health-IT provider.

Nuance Healthcare

Nuance Healthcare provides a comprehensive family of speech-driven clinical documentation and communication solutions that enable healthcare provider organisations to reduce operating costs, increase reimbursement, and enhance patient care and safety. The company’s solutions are used by more than 8,000 hospitals and 400,000 physicians worldwide. For more information about Nuance Healthcare please visit: www.nuancehealthcare.eu.

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) 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. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com.

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