Nuance Communications unveiled an artificial virtual assistant specifically for patients and healthcare providers on Wednesday. 

The company has built artificial intelligence virtual assistants for consumer and automotive brands including American Airlines, Amtrak, Audi, Barclay’s, BMW, Citi, Delta, Domino’s, FedEx, Ford and GM. 

Nuance’s new Dragon Medical Virtual Assistant is designed to streamline a variety of clinical workflows for the 500,000 clinicians that already use Dragon Medical for their clinical documentation, the company said.

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Based on the Nuance Virtual Assistant platform, the software can enable conversational dialogues and pre-built capabilities that automate clinical workflows. The healthcare virtual assistant includes voice recognition technology designed for healthcare, voice biometrics and text-to-speech, EHR integrations and strategic health IT relationships, a prototype smart speaker customized for healthcare use-cases and a secure platform.

“Technology needs to be unobtrusive and support the process of providing high-quality patient care – not get in the way,” said David Ting, MD, chief medical information officer at Massachusetts General Physicians Organization. “Having Nuance’s AI-powered virtual assistant technology embedded into the EHR will help make a new generation of patient care a reality – for both clinicians and patients.”

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Nuance is helping to create a healthcare setting where clinicians can refocus on their patients without technology getting in the way, said Peter Durlach, senior vice president of strategy, healthcare division, at Nuance.

“By spending more time with patients,” Durlach said, “the quality of care will increase, patients will be more satisfied with their experience and clinicians will be less burnt out.”

Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: bill.siwicki@himssmedia.com