Nuance Validates Ability To Automatically Extract Information From Paper-Based Files And Populate EHRs

Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) today announced that at the recent IHE North America Connectathon 2013 event in Chicago, IL, the Company successfully completed testing for extracting discrete data from paper records and automatically populating appropriate fields in medical documents. This solution conforms to the new Consolidated CDA format, and can help hospitals and physicians address certain Meaningful Use requirements for information sharing and exchange.

The healthcare industry continues to rely on paper-based information for many critical processes. According to the US Healthcare Index the US uses 4,969,875,500 sheets of paper every year just for the processing of healthcare claims and payments. In addition, approximately 60 percent of the 1.2 billion clinical documents produced in the United States each year are in unstructured form (like dictated notes or paper records), requiring manual processing to make this health data actionable. A significant portion of this paper contains information that is needed to complete electronic forms, and could easily be scanned to convert into electronic form.

“There is a tremendous amount of important clinical data contained in paper-based records,” said Michael Rich, senior vice president and general manager, Nuance Document Imaging. “By creating a method to automatically extract and manage this information, Nuance enhances the accuracy and availability of patient records. With better records, hospitals are able to improve patient care, directly impacting the bottom line for hospitals and others in the healthcare industry.”

The solution integrates Nuance’s Clinical Language Understanding (CLU) capabilities and Imaging scanning technologies to automatically extract discrete patient data from paper records and populate the appropriate fields in medical documents. In addition, for the second consecutive year at Connectathon, Nuance successfully completed interoperability testing for the transmission of patient records with several EHR systems by enabling users to convert scanned document images and securely transmit them directly into a patient’s record.

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