MEDITECH Launches Virtual Assistant with Nuance Voice Capabilities

MEDITECH is launching a new virtual assistant built with Nuance’s Dragon Medical voice technology. The assistant will improve the utility of MEDITECH’s Expanse electronic health record (EHR) platform, allowing doctors to navigate patient charts and search for key information (such as lab results, images, and medications) with simple voice commands.

The new solution reinforces the existing relationship between MEDITECH and Nuance. The former integrated the latter’s voice technology into the Expanse platform in January of 2019, although the MEDITECH Expanse Virtual Assistant will be more robust than its predecessor. The new Virtual Assistant offers better conversational capabilities, which will in turn speed up searches so doctors can spend more time with patients and less time rifling through paperwork.

“Virtual Assistant technology represents a leap forward in usability and efficiency, ushering in a new era of digital transformation,” said MEDITECH EVP Helen Waters. “Physicians can simply ask for what they need from their Expanse EHR and get it.”

According to the two companies, virtual assistant technology will lead to more sanitary patient outcomes both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In that regard, the hands-free technology will mitigate the spread of infectious diseases because it will limit the need to make contact with shared surfaces like keyboards and screens. It will also allow doctors to reference patient charts without needing to leave a sterile environment like an operating room.

“Our shared goal is to improve efficiency and increase clinician satisfaction for those who take care of all of us, and enhance the overall provider-patient experience,” added Nuance Healthcare Strategy and New Business SVP Peter Durlach.

MEDITECH is not the only company to adopt Nuance’s virtual assistant technology. The Cerner Corporation’s Millennium EHR solution is similarly built with the Dragon Medical platform, and received its own virtual assistant update at the end of July.

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September 9, 2020 – by Eric Weiss