Morning Headlines 9/17/13
Customized Version of Dragon Medical for Major EHR
Nuance announces a customized version of its Dragon Voice Recognition product designed to streamline physician workflow within the Epic HER. Nuance’s tailored voice recognition program can launch more than 1,000 functions within Epic based on voice recognition commands.
James Noga, CIO at Partners HealthCare (MA), writes a Boston Globe article outlining the importance of implementing a single, integrated EHR (Epic) across Partners HealthCare’s two flagship organizations: Brigham and Women’s and Mass General Hospital.
Study finds $321 million in wasted technology spending
A Government Accountability Office report released last week finds that $321 million in taxpayer dollars has been wasted on federal technology projects over the past five years, including $256 million on HHS projects that were deemed "duplicative" and unnecessary.
Rural areas striving to meet health records requirements
In a local OpEd, Senator John Thune argues that Meaningful Use requirements may be unrealistic for some rural hospitals to achieve and that the law should include more flexibility when penalties kick in.
The stats given in that Nuance press release are hard to believe: >50% of US physicians, and nearly 80% of Epic clients use Dragon. Even if their stats were “had a license to use” I’m not sure they would hit that high. Maybe “have ever thought about using”?