Nuance launches SpeechMagic Solution Builder 2 in the Middle East for the Healthcare Market

Local partner ‘Emerging Technologies’ first to distribute speech-based clinical documentation solution in the region

Published: 01/25/2010

VIENNA, AUSTRIA and DUBAI - (HealthTech Wire / News) - Nuance Communications, Inc., a leading supplier of speech solutions, today introduced its speech-based clinical documentation application SpeechMagic Solution Builder 2.0 for the Middle East market at the Arab Health exhibition in Dubai (25- 28 January, 2010). Emerging Technologies, an Abu Dhabi-based supplier of speech-enabled business applications and speech recognition technology, will be the first local partner responsible for distributing the solution in the various countries of the region. Hospitals and healthcare organisations in the Middle East now have access to this innovative technology that allows users to rapidly improve workflows, reduce costs, and facilitate digitalisation of clinical documentation.

“There is an increasing demand in the Middle East for speech recognition solutions that are both simple to integrate into legacy information systems and highly scalable. Nuance’s SpeechMagic Solution Builder 2.0 can be quickly deployed within any healthcare IT infrastructure. We are confident SpeechMagic Solution Builder will efficiently respond to this demand for highly productive and interoperable tools”, says Marcel Wassink, Vice President Nuance Healthcare for the EMEA region.

A solution that is both quick and powerful
SpeechMagic Solution Builder will supplement in the Middle East region existing speech recognition solutions from Nuance: Dragon Medical 10. While Dragon Medical meets the needs of GPs and smaller user groups, SpeechMagic Solution Builder is particularly suitable for larger installations, for example hospital-wide installations or installations within large-scale networks. It is a highly customisable solution allowing the use a variety of workflows for the benefit of the clinical staff, system administrators and the patients. “SpeechMagic Solution Builder can administrate up to 100.000 dictations at a time”, says Marcel Wassink. Consequently, big health-IT providers such as Agfa Healthcare have already integrated SpeechMagic Solution Builder 2.0 into their Health-IT-portfolio.
 
SpeechMagic Solution Builder satisfies the doctors, the CIO and the hospital administration
Nuance’s SpeechMagic Solution Builder offers benefits to all players in a healthcare organisation. It helps doctors by speeding up report creation, reducing inquiries from other departments and often giving them more time for their patients. The Nuance solution satisfies CIOs as it is fast and easy to integrate into existing information systems, be it a RIS, a HIS or any medical information system. It is also highly customisable and compatible with various types of infrastructures including Citrix networks and Linux operating systems. Maintenance efforts are particularly low, and installations can easily be extended. SpeechMagic Solution Builder is a highly scalable system suitable for all sizes of installations starting from one department up to a large hospital chain.

Speech recognition leads to significant savings in transcription costs, making the implementation of speech recognition an IT project with a fast return on investment. Another key benefit is that a quicker document turnover means earlier billing, which again is a considerable interest for the hospital. By improving hospital finances, SpeechMagic Solution Builder meets the hospital administration requirements.

Highly satisfied customers all over the world
Customers from all over the world bring testimonial that the implementation of speech recognition ranks among their most successful IT projects. As an example, the introduction of speech recognition into the radiological department of the University Hospital Tübingen, Germany led to net savings of 150.000 Euros a year. At Sykehuset Telemark Hospital in Norway, a hospital-wide installation led to savings of around 900.000 Euros a year. User acceptance is generally high: “Typically, very soon after deployment, authors feel comfortable using the product and their productivity improves”, says Marcel Wassink.

Distribution in the Middle East via local partners
In the Middle East, SpeechMagic Solution Builder 2.0 will be distributed via Emerging Technologies (www.em-t.com). “We are happy to be able to include SpeechMagic Solution Builder 2.0 into our portfolio. There is increasing interest in speech recognition in hospitals in the Middle East. SpeechMagic Solution Builder 2.0 thus comes at the right time”, says M. Sassine Mazraani, CEO of Emerging Technologies. To experience SpeechMagic Solution Builder 2.0, visit the Arab Health exhibition in Dubai (25- 28 January, 2010), stand RH13.

In the near future more local partners will follow to give as many hospitals as possible access to the solution via integration in the respective information systems.

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