Nuance Adds Ambient Clinical Intelligence to Dragon Medical Portfolio

The strategic partnership between Nuance Communications and Microsoft is already starting to pay dividends. The two companies announced that they would be joining forces back in October to accelerate the delivery of ambient clinical intelligence (ACI). They have now followed through with the release of Nuance’s Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX) solution.

DAX is a clinical AI that was designed to automate the record-keeping process for physicians. To that end, DAX utilizes speech recognition to capture and document conversations between a patient and their physician, essentially creating a record of treatment in real time. The solution is built with Microsoft Azure, and leverages an ambient device with a multi-party microphone array, an interactive display, and biometric technology.

The platform is compatible with HIPAA’s privacy regulations, and requires the consent of the patient (consent rates reached 90 percent in clinical trials). The documents created through the platform satisfy the legal liability requirements for physicians and can be used to fulfill insurance claims and ensure payment for medical services.  

The broader goal is to reduce the administrative burden on physicians, who often experience burnout due to the amount of paperwork involved in running a practice. By automating much of that process, DAX will empower doctors to do the job they were actually trained to do.

“With [DAX], our providers can spend more time with their patients and less time on administrative tasks,” said Ann Cappellari. Cappellari is the Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer of SSM Health, which will begin piloting the technology at clinics in the Midwest in March. “This helps providers and patients communicate more clearly and build stronger relationships. That results in better care, which is everyone’s goal.”

Novant Health, Rush University Medical Center, and Nebraska Medicine are amongst the other medical organizations that will be adopting the DAX platform.

DAX is an extension of Nuance’s Dragon Medical platform, and is meant to be deployed alongside an electronic health records (EHR) solution. It comes packaged with Microsoft’s EmpowerMD platform, which offers improved AI and cloud capabilities. DAX itself also provides some virtual assistant functionality, and can be controlled with simple voice commands. 

Nuance recently extended Dragon Medical One coverage to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The company first unveiled its ACI solution in February 2019, and has now hit its target for the commercial launch, which was anticipated in early 2020.

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February 24, 2020 – by Eric Weiss