Kansas City-based health IT company Cerner announced this week plans to embed Nuance Communications' cloud-based medical voice recognition into all of the mobile-enabled versions of its electronic health record offerings, including PowerChart Touch, which it launched at HIMSS in February. Cerner believes the voice recognition technology will help clinicians capture more complete notes when meeting patients, better navigate apps on their mobile devices, and more easily search for information while on the go.
Voice recognition technologies have long aimed to help smartphone and tablet devices overcome usability challenges around inputting data. When the iPad and other consumer tablets began making their way into the enterprise, the devices were often decried as devices best suited for consuming content, but less suitable for entering data.
Cerner's deal with Nuance also includes a specific integrtation between Nuance's radiology reporting suite, PowerScribe 360,and Cerner's RadNet Radiology Information System (RIS). Radiologists using Cerner's software will be able to dictate reports now that get integrated to their patient records in real-time, according to the two companies.
