BURLINGTON, Mass., Nuance Communications, Inc., a leading supplier of speech solutions, today announced that in conjunction with other leading healthcare technology companies, it is co- launching an alliance aimed at educating 500,000 US physicians about opportunities aligned with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. The Electronic Health Record (EHR) Stimulus Alliance, spearheaded by Allscripts, includes Cisco, Citrix, Dell, Intel, Intuit Microsoft and Nuance, and aims to deliver hundreds of virtual and physical education programs for physicians in cities across the U.S.

"The EHR Stimulus Alliance is a unified movement toward turning the national dialogue surrounding the EHR transition into action," said John Shagoury, president, Nuance Healthcare. "Each of the partners involved has unique solutions that are crucial to EHR implementation. In our case, because most doctors speak at least three times faster than they type, speech recognition technology helps increase the meaningful use and efficiency of EHRs by decreasing physician reliance on the keyboard and mouse. By providing speech recognition as an EHR documentation option, medical records are more complete with detailed patient history and a care plan; additionally, they are not reduced to only point-and-click templates void of physician narrative."

The EHR Stimulus Tour will provide actionable information for physicians via executive briefings, roundtables, trade show presentations, webcasts and local meetings with Alliance experts and medical groups that have already successfully adopted EHRs. Surveys indicate that many physicians do not understand the details of the federal EHR incentive program, including how much money they are eligible to receive, when it will be allocated and how they can qualify. The Tour will answer these questions, as well as provide opportunities for clinicians to learn about complementary EHR capabilities enabled by speech technology that can extend the value in an EHR investment.

"Speech has already proven to be a key component in the success of the electronic healthcare revolution by streamlining the adoption process for new EHR users who are accustomed to dictating patient documentation. As a pioneer in this space, Nuance will lend a wealth of information and expertise to the Alliance that will directly benefit the 500,000 physicians we hope to reach," said Glen Tullman, chief executive officer, Allscripts. "Now, more than ever, it's critical that healthcare industry leaders and innovators join forces, share ideas, collaborate and educate to ensure that physicians not only take advantage of the stimulus incentives, but successfully utilize electronic health records to improve our healthcare system."

Speech Recognition Technology and the EHR Transition

Speech recognition technology is increasingly recognized as an essential component to a successful EHR rollout and has been proven to make clinicians up to 25 percent more efficient with an EHR compared to using a non-voice-enabled system. As the Health and Human Services Department works to define "meaningful use" of an EHR, Nuance believes that speech recognition software can help physicians and organizations move toward complying with what will ultimately be considered "meaningful" EHR use, by ensuring that clinicians actually utilize the EHR and that the physician narrative is not completely lost during the documentation process. Today, more than 20 percent of physicians in North America use both background and real-time speech solutions from Nuance to generate over 800 million electronic health records per year.

To further optimize the EHR experience for physicians using real-time speech recognition, Nuance recently announced its Dragon Medical EHR Certification Program. EHR vendors such as Allscripts that participate in the program complete a Nuance-managed evaluation and work with Nuance engineers to ensure seamless Dragon Medical workflow within their EHR. By adding this additional layer of interoperability, physicians and healthcare organizations can confidently make their EHR migration, knowing speech recognition is not only possible, but has been pre-tested and optimized for utmost clinician efficiency.

According to a survey completed by 1,255 physicians who have adopted Nuance's Dragon Medical software:

* 83 percent said that it improved the quality of their electronic patient notes,
* 81 percent said that it significantly reduced transcription spending, and* 69 percent said it made their EHR faster and easier to use.

To find out more about Nuance's speech recognition technology for the healthcare industry, please visit: http://www.nuance.com/healthcare/.

Nuance's Healthcare Business

Nuance's healthcare portfolio of proven, speech-enabled clinical documentation and communication solutions enable healthcare provider organizations to improve financial performance, enhance patient care, and increase patient safety. With more than 3,000 healthcare customers worldwide, Nuance has the experience and solutions that meet the individual needs of any size healthcare provider organization.

Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance is a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information and how they create, share and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance's proven applications and professional services. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com.