Nuance Communications, Inc., a leading supplier of speech solutions, announced that its SpeechMagic technology has been rolled-out at 12 sites of HCA International, central London’s premier healthcare facility. SpeechMagic is one of Nuance’s healthcare speech recognition solutions geared towards integrated information capturing networks typically found in larger departments, hospitals and healthcare systems.

Integrated into Euromed’s MedSpeech reporting solution, SpeechMagic has reduced average report creation times from 24 hours to two hours and 40 minutes. Adoption levels among radiologists surpassed the initial goal of 60% by the end of the project: with two-thirds of the roll-out complete, more than 96% of the dictations are already processed through speech recognition.

“The surprisingly high adoption level means that the profiles are good, that reports are turning around faster and that integration is optimal,” said Kaye Bonython, Imaging Informatics Programme Manager at HCA International. “This is even more surprising, as we had to deal with concerns. People had negative past experience with speech recognition and they thought it would result in too much time added to their reporting schedule. But the initial negative thoughts simply vanished once radiologists saw that the technology had progressed to a state where it could really improve the timing.”

HCA places great importance on customer satisfaction. Providing timely reports to patients is extremely important to patient management. “Many patients come to have an imaging procedure prior to their meeting with an outpatient consultant. They want to have the image done immediately, get the report and leave. There is no doubt that speech recognition has improved patient service – they know their consultant can base decisions on both – the right image and the right report. We give them a higher level of confidence,” said Kaye Bonython.

HCA conducts 330,000 radiology examinations per year. The 160 radiologists serve approximately 5,000 referring physicians. To ensure seamless system roll-out, HCA involved senior physicians to lobby for speech recognition. Significant resources were allocated to training, including a champion at every site for first line support. A minimum of three one-to-one training sessions of three hours each were conducted for every user, to reduce initial reluctance and build confidence – as users not only had to get used to speech recognition, but also to the new digital recording hardware.

HCA’s decided on SpeechMagic after six-week long pilots of three products, which had been fully integrated into the organization’s Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS) to address potential implementation issues prior to the actual roll-out. The reward was a hassle-free, user-friendly switch to speech recognition across the entire organization.

Nuance’s Healthcare Solutions – used by more than 3,000 hospitals and 250,000 physicians – provide a comprehensive family of speech-driven clinical documentation and communication solutions that enable healthcare provider organizations to reduce operating costs, increase reimbursement, and enhance patient care and safety. Nuance has recently acquired Philips Speech Recognition Systems (PSRS) and the SpeechMagic technology from Royal Philips Electronics. PSRS’ solutions such as Speechmagic are now an integral part of Nuance’s healthcare portfolio of proven, speech-enabled clinical documentation and communication solutions.