The importance of Nuance healthcare solutions became clear when I joined the company in mid-2021 to lead the Dragon Medical business. Seeing how Dragon Medical products alleviate clinician burden at the point of care, especially during the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, reminds me of my experiences as a pediatric nurse. As we collectively face new variants and surges in the COVID pandemic, the provider community is being asked relentlessly to do more. It’s not surprising then that in recent years, the Triple Aim has been expanded to the Quadruple Aim, anchoring all of us on what good looks like and what we are collectively “aiming’ to achieve as a healthcare system at large.
Anyone who has been a healthcare provider understands at a gut level the impact that your work has on patients. I experienced that feeling as a nurse on the medical-surgical pediatric unit at the John Hopkins Children’s Center. I started my career as a clinician, caring for children with complex diagnoses who would come to Hopkins for cutting-edge treatment.
A deep awareness of the impact that the business of healthcare has on patients has stayed with me ever since and is central to my role today leading the Dragon Medical team at Nuance. We are continuously enhancing an exciting range of cloud-based solutions that clinicians love because of how they help improve patient care, especially when already stressed care teams cope with surges in COVID cases and relentlessly increasing demands. This is, as we well know, above and beyond the daily work of managing sicker patients, documenting their care and treatment, and navigating an evolving and complex reimbursement landscape. I clearly remember the “if you don’t document it, you can’t bill for it” pressure and yet, in the years since I worked as a nurse, we now have even more documentation requirements that must be captured in electronic health records, which means a screen and/or a keyboard between the patient and provider.
It’s not surprising then that in recent years, the Triple Aim has been expanded to the Quadruple Aim, anchoring all of us on what good looks like and what we are collectively “aiming’ to achieve as a healthcare system at large: 1) improve population health 2) reduce the cost of care 3) enhance the patient experience and 4) improve the clinician experience.
That last one, to improve the clinician experience, is the addition that acknowledges that provider satisfaction and burnout are tremendous risks to our delivery infrastructure. This is where Dragon Medical shines. Dragon Medical is a reliable and familiar tool, used by clinicians as they face uncertainty, risk, increasing administrative burden and burnout. Through the lens of the Quadruple Aim, I am excited at this broader mission our solution aligns to – supporting our users in delivering world class care, reducing inefficiency by improving their workflow, streamlining documentation so clinicians can focus on the patient experience, and ultimately, reducing the burden on clinicians and improving provider satisfaction. At Nuance, our talented and experienced teams are bringing Dragon Medical and conversational AI technology to the next level with advanced tools that can transform the future of healthcare for patients and providers alike.
As a key part of our expanding Dragon Medical solutions portfolio, Dragon Medical One harnesses the power of conversational AI to enable clinicians to capture the complete patient story while restoring the importance of face-to-face physician-patient interactions. Simply put, Dragon Medical lets clinicians focus on what they do best — care for patients. It’s easy to understand why more than 550,000 doctors worldwide rely on Dragon Medical products, and why Dragon Medical One has won awards from KLAS and Black Book Market Research. Looking ahead, we are expanding our footprint past high accuracy medical dictation. Our team is working to accelerate repetitive workflows, enter discrete data, and navigate EMRs – all through voice.
The Dragon Medical Story – Integration and Optimization
A big reason why Dragon Medical is so ubiquitous is its deep integration with leading electronic medical record (EMR) systems including Epic, Cerner, MEDITECH and others. Along with the ability to add and enhance features through the cloud, extensive EMR integration is one of the features that make Dragon Medical stand out.
Health system executives also see Dragon Medical’s conversational AI technology as the key to optimizing physician and patient experiences and a central part of their digital transformation. Optimization includes alleviating physician burnout by enabling clinicians to focus on patient care while creating higher-quality clinical notes in less time. That means that patients have better care experiences, and doctors have more time to see patients each day and still get home to their own families after clinical hours. High-quality clinical documentation also drives faster and more accurate reimbursements that help ensure health system financial integrity and expand access to care.
The Transformation Journey Ahead
In a world where uncertainty and rapid change is affecting health systems across the country, Dragon Medical has been a sign of familiarity, stability, and reliability. This reputation is made clear in our rankings, something we never take for granted but fuels us to find new ways to deepen our value proposition to providers. The technical and clinical knowledge and experience we use to create Nuance conversational AI technology and Dragon Medical solutions also make us keenly aware that more is both possible and needed.
In my next blog, I’ll look ahead to how we plan to take Dragon Medical to the next level through a comprehensive strategy that combines voice, ambient, and new approaches to creating a best-in-class experience for clinicians.
