athenahealth Taps Voice Recognition Tech for EHR Documentation

athenahealth, Inc. and Nuance Communications, Inc. have announced the integration of voice recognition and virtual assistant technologies into the athenaOne EHR and Mobile App to improve patient experience by reducing burdensome EHR documentation practices.

athenaOne Dictation users will now have access to Nuance’s conversational AI platform, Dragon Medical, which helps reduce documentation time and ideally clinician burden.

The collaboration is prompted by advances in speech technology that have proven to increase productivity, allowing physicians more time to focus on patient care.

“At athenahealth, our collaboration efforts with Nuance are directly pointed at supporting ambulatory care practices and healthcare systems, their providers, and their patients,” Paul Brient, athenahealth’s chief product officer, said in a press release.

“Amid the continued strain that the pandemic puts on healthcare workers and the growing need for more efficient, positive experiences in healthcare, Nuance was the ideal partner to help bring a solution to life,” Brient continued. “With the integration of Nuance’s industry-leading technology with our athenaOne EHR, physicians can spend less time on administrative work and more time focusing on patient care.”

A recent Nuance survey found that 94 percent of clinicians believe EHR voice recognition and virtual assistant technology will improve the ability to document care. The survey revealed that approximately 94 percent of clinicians still type patient notes into the EHR, taking up valuable time that could be used to improve the patient experience.

The integration of Nuance’s cloud-based voice recognition and virtual assistant technologies into the athenaOne EHR and Mobile App gives physicians the ability to document and navigate patient encounters by using voice commands.

“Patients want to be fully engaged in their health and care,” said Peter Durlach, chief strategy officer at Nuance Communications. “When we reduce documentation burden with conversational AI technology, clinicians can give more time, empathy, context, and personalized care to their patients.”

“Together with athenahealth, we are helping clinicians navigate their EHR by voice, and document patient encounters easily and consistently across mobile and desktop devices – keeping patients front and center – to improve their experiences, outcomes, and lives,” Durlach continued.

athenahealth and mutual Nuance customers can start using athenaOne Dictation Powered by Nuance immediately. Voice assistant capabilities are currently in beta testing and are expected to become generally available later this year.

Nuance’s recent survey report also highlighted the fact that 40 percent of clinicians experience burnout based on data from the 2019 Medscape National Physician Burnout, Depression & Suicide Report. The integration of the conversational AI platform will free up clinician’s time from laborious documentation processes that take away from the patient-provider experience.

The survey also found that 90 percent of respondents agree speech recognition helps improve clinical documentation practices and over 70 percent agree ambient technology allows them to spend more time and energy focusing on patient care. What’s more, 97 percent of clinicians who use ambient technology report being more focused, engaged, and personable while treating patients.

Angela Ammon, MD, a family medicine specialist at Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs, CO, noted that the AI solution has helped her deliver patient-centered care.

 “The athenaOne Mobile App with dictation has helped me capture my patients’ stories much more thoroughly and my assessments now reflect more complex thinking and differential diagnoses,” said Ammon. “I use it all the time to dictate during the patient encounter without taking my focus from them, and they are finding that the treatment plan and instructions are more memorable.”

“The accuracy of the solution is better than the other voice recognition programs I have used in the past,” she continued. “It’s easy to train the names of local physicians and is excellent for recognizing medication names and medical terms.”