Nuance Communications Inc. said Thursday it bought rival medical transcription service Webmedx for an undisclosed sum.

Burlington, Mass.-based Nuance, which also makes speech recognition software for health care and other industries, said the purchase would strengthen its transcription service offerings to doctors. The company also said Atlanta-based Webmedx's natural language processing program, Quality Analytics, which mines data from narrative reports, would complement its own such programs.

"Webmedx's award-winning clinical documentation services and technology strengthens and expands Nuance's work with health care organizations as they undertake EHR adoption and strive to achieve Meaningful Use," Janet Dillione, executive vice president and general manager of Nuance's health care branch, said in a statement.
Webmedx has more than 100 customers, including Bon Secours and Catholic Healthcare, Nuance said. It also runs the Medical Technology Education Center, or MTEC, a speech recognition editing and medical transcription school.

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