Category Archives: Speech recognition

EHR, Electronic health record, iPhone, Medical, Mobile, Nuance, Nuance Communications, Speech recognition, Voice

Nuance Adds Voice to Epic Mobile Electronic Health Record Apps

Nuance Communications, Inc.  today announced that Epic electronic health record (EHR) customers can now use voice-enabled clinical information capture through Epic Haiku for the iPhone™ and Canto for the iPad™.

“Epic’s mobile applications provide valuable EHR access both inside and outside the hospital or clinic environment,” said Dr. Jeffrey Westcott, medical director, Cardiac Catherization Lab, Swedish Medical Center. “For me, it’s important to have the on-the-go accessibility provided by tablets and smartphones. Using voice recognition to document a note in Haiku or Canto allows me to seamlessly dictate the patient narrative into the electronic healthcare record using a workflow that suits my style and ensures my focus can remain on patients.”

Nuance’s cloud-based, medical voice recognition builds off of its proven success with the more than 450,000 clinicians worldwide who use Nuance’s Best-in-KLAS clinical documentation solutions on the desktop every day. By leveraging the existing desktop-focused interface, Nuance enables Haiku and Canto customers to connect to Nuance Healthcare’s voice recognition in the cloud. This connectivity will provide maintenance-free access and automatic updates of personal speech profiles, medical vocabularies and user-defined shortcuts. Customers can also enter progress notes, histories and physical exams via voice.

“Clinicians’ work lives are not conducive to a desk and chair; they need the flexibility of a mobile environment to support their workflow – between exam rooms, clinics and hospitals – and all at a moment’s notice,” said Janet Dillione, executive vice president and general manager, Nuance Healthcare. “Still, issues surrounding the adoption of mobile technologies remain, including limitations surrounding laborious touchscreen keyboards. With voice-enabled mobile EHR applications, clinicians can enjoy the benefits of the Nuance-powered functionality anytime, anywhere.”


Android, iOS, Mobile, Natural Language Understanding, Nina, Nuance, Nuance Communications, Speech recognition, Tools, Voice

Nuance Introduces Nina, the Virtual Assistant for Mobile Customer Service Apps

Nuance Communications today introduced Nina, the virtual assistant for mobile customer service apps. With Nina, companies can add speech-based virtual assistant capabilities to their existing iOS and Android mobile apps, enhancing the self-service experience for their customers. Nina combines Nuance speech recognition, Text-to-Speech (TTS), voice biometrics, and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) technology hosted in the cloud to deliver an interactive user experience that not only understands what is said, but also can identify who is saying it.

Nuance also announced that USAA, a leading financial services provider that serves members of the U.S. military, veterans and their families, has adopted the virtual assistant for use within its popular mobile app. A pilot is planned for August and the functionality will launch to all USAA members early next year.

“USAA’s innovative solutions are designed to make life easier for our highly mobile military service members, and increasingly for all members who now expect to get things done when, where and how they want,” said Neff Hudson, assistant vice president of emerging channels for USAA. “We believe that the virtual assistant has tremendous potential to make it simpler, faster and more satisfying for our members to manage their financial affairs on their mobile devices.”

Nina is significant because it is the first virtual assistant for mobile customer service apps to incorporate both speech recognition and voice biometrics into a single integrated solution. Nina is also the first solution that provides an open software development kit (SDK) to support the rapid integration of virtual assistant capabilities into existing mobile applications. In addition, Nina is the first to allow organizations to brand their own virtual assistant persona, including the visual appearance and implementation of optional custom TTS voices.

“Nina is a watershed innovation for the automated customer service industry, not only because it brings the virtual assistant directly into an app, but because it raises the bar through its level of interactive dialog and language understanding,” said Robert Weideman, executive vice president and general manager of the Nuance Enterprise Division. “Nina provides our customers a major competitive differentiator by enabling more successful self-service through their mobile apps. We are especially pleased to further our partnership with USAA, a company known for its innovation and approach to delivering a premier mobile customer service experience to its members.”