Let the clinicians be heard: Nuance Dragon’s Peter Mahoney talks voice powered secure messaging

Earlier this month, we announced that our secure messaging solution now supports clinical speech recognition through the Nuance Dragon® Medical One cloud platform. Using Dragon Medical embedded in Imprivata Cortext, healthcare providers can now speed the input of accurate, high context patient care communications, including orders, by allowing physicians to say what they mean.

This week, we asked Peter Mahoney, senior vice president and general manager of Dragon for Nuance’s Healthcare division, to share his thoughts on the impact that voice powered secure messaging can have on healthcare, how it can increase physician productivity and satisfaction and raise the overall quality of patient care, and how it will contribute to the evolution of secure communication in healthcare.

Easy to use speech recognition

We hear so much today about the “digital doctor,” what is your take on that and how does secure text messaging and voice recognition play an important role in this evolution?

The healthcare industry is at a pivotal point in its attempts to digitize information. Providers are being asked to bear the brunt of the increased requirements for clinical documentation at the same time that they are being pushed to see more patients for smaller amounts of time. In most healthcare settings – doctors are like perpetual motion machines – constantly moving from patient to patient with very little time to communicate to the rest of the care team and deliver on the documentation requirements that have been foisted upon them.

In this environment, the combination of secure text messaging and clinical voice recognition is the only way they can deliver on their documentation requirements and coordinate care across the whole team. Because they are always on the move – they need tools that work for them while they are moving.

Why is it important for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to have the ability to speak into their device and then securely send what was captured via text?

Because healthcare happens in real time, healthcare providers need to communicate in real time. Text messaging seems like an obvious solution to the problem – most people are comfortable communicating time sensitive information in that format. But the healthcare setting has some unique characteristics that require a unique solution. First of all, HIPAA demands a very high level of information security for this type of communication. Secondly, voice input is the only reasonable method for communicating healthcare information with the detail, accuracy and specificity required to deliver great care.

Can you tell us about Nuance Dragon Medical One and how integrating with Imprivata is an important development for the healthcare industry?

Nuance Dragon Medical One is a comprehensive, cloud-based clinical documentation solution that delivers a personalized voice experience across clinical workflows. We achieve integration with Imprivata by using a Nuance Healthcare ID (NHID), a single identity that provides physicians with a personalized voice experience within the Dragon Medical One application as well as through leading mobile communications solutions like Imprivata Cortext.

What type of healthcare settings do you see this offering thriving in?

Dragon Medical One was designed with a broad set of care settings in mind. From private practice to clinic and all the way to the most complex acute care settings, Dragon Medical One and Imprivata can deliver secure documentation in communication between the care team.

Do you think clinicians are frustrated with the amount of documentation and administration they do every day? If so, what can be done to help alleviate this?

Physicians spend 43% of their day on data entry - that’s a pretty shocking number to most people, but not surprising to today’s clinician community. They also spent a great deal of their time on the move. If you spend nearly half your day creating documentation and the rest of the time on the move, when do you actually get to see patients? That’s the frustration that clinicians are seeing today. The combination of Dragon Medical One and Imprivata Cortext is exactly the type of solution that can help alleviate this problem. Efficient, voice-enabled documentation across your workflows combined with powerful, real time care team communication – powered by the same high quality, personalized voice experience.

How do you see communications in healthcare evolving over the coming months and years?

The combination of Dragon Medical One and Imprivata Cortext provides a glimpse into the future of healthcare. We see clinical documentation getting more mobile and more efficient – working away the today’s clinical teams work. We also see the solutions getting more proactive – instead of technology being a barrier for physicians, we see a day where technology is a powerful ambient intelligence – taking orders and providing subtle recommendations to empower the care team. In short, today doctors feel like they are slaves to technologies, but we believe technology done right will be viewed as a powerful service to clinical teams – amplifying their already considerable expertise.