DrChrono announced this week that it had partnered with M*Modal to integrate medical speech-to-text functionality into its iPad EHR app.

Epocrates, which announced plans to develop its own EHR last year, said it was working with Nuance to integrate speech-to-text technology into its offering.

DrChrono, a free download from the App store, is one of the first EHR apps built specifically for the iPad. DrChrono also offers iPhone and Android apps (a version for Android tablets is in development), and announced they had secured $675k in funding earlier this month. (At HIMSS 2011 they also announced their acceptance into Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator incubator, which provides some funding for its startups.) With the M*Modal software integration, physicians can now dictate their notes into a Bluetooth headset, which the software will then translate into text -- all from within the app.

DrChrono CEO and Co-Founder Michael Nusimow stated in a press release that the company's “mission is to deliver an EHR that physicians will actually use. M*Modal’s ability to work on the iPad and its respect for doctors’ preferences and productivity needs made the company our choice for pioneering iPad-based speech-to-text.”

Read the full press release after the jump.

M*Modal, the industry leader in advanced Speech Understanding™ technology, today announced that DrChrono.com, the premier publisher of dynamic point-of-care and practice management software, is offering M*Modal’s unique Speech Understanding technology as part of Dr.Chrono’s innovative iPad EHR app. This integration represents the first medical speech-to-text functionality for the Apple® iPad® and adds a significant enhancement to the DrChrono.com platform—the first native EHR application built for the iPad.

DrChrono.com allows physicians to streamline their daily workflows by giving them the ability to access all health records on demand via the iPad, iPhone, any Web browser or Android device. For clinical documentation on the go, physicians dictate their notes into a Bluetooth headset, and M*Modal’s technology automatically transforms the voice into text directly in the digital patient record. M*Modal’s Speech Understanding permits conversational documentation that matches doctor preferences for workflow and promotes adoption of EHRs.

The iPad has achieved rapid adoption among physicians, reaching 30 percent of U.S. physicians currently and another 28 percent planning to acquire soon, according to a recent survey by Manhattan Research. Meredith Ressi, president of that firm, noted, “Physicians’ response to the iPad has been overwhelmingly positive, especially for use in the practice setting. Physicians also express strong interest in being able to access electronic medical records through the iPad – as more EMR providers offer this ability, iPad accessibility may be a deciding factor for some practices when selecting an EMR provider.”

Michael Nusimow, CEO and Co-Founder of DrChrono.com said, “Our mission is to deliver an EHR that physicians will actually use. M*Modal’s ability to work on the iPad and its respect for doctors’ preferences and productivity needs made the company our choice for pioneering iPad-based speech-to-text.”

“DrChrono.com understands the need for mobility in clinical documentation with full context provided by the EHR,” said Michael Finke, CEO, M*Modal. “With the iPad appearing to be a true game-changer in healthcare, DrChrono.com’s collaboration with M*Modal has produced significant and beneficial innovation.”

M*Modal solutions support one-fifth of the physicians actively practicing medicine today in enterprise and clinic settings. M*Modal partners with a wide range of EHR, radiology system and clinical documentation companies.

About DrChrono.com

DrChrono.com has created the world's first native iPad Electronic Medical Record Platform available for free download in the iTunes App Store. The DrChrono.com iPad EMR platform is paired with a hosted SaaS (Software as a Service) practice management backend that provides electronic medical billing and scheduling over the web. The DrChrono.com solution allows healthcare providers to achieve meaningful use of EMR technology while modernizing and streamlining their medical billing and accounts receivable. The DrChrono.com solution has attained 2011/2012 Meaningful Use Stage I certification as a complete EHR from CCHIT.

About M*Modal:

M*Modal, the market leader in advanced Speech and Natural Language Understanding technology, transforms narrative medical documentation into structured, encoded information to create meaningful, valuable clinical intelligence that can be shared, analyzed, and used to inform collaborative care. More than 800 healthcare organizations nationwide utilize M*Modal’s solutions to re-define the role of clinical narrative in improving and promoting quality of care, clinical efficiency, financial performance, and EHR adoption. For more information, please visit www.mmodal.com.