The U.S. Army Medical Department has expanded its use of speech technology to 10,000 of its physicians to more than 90,000 worldwide.

The Army recently purchased Dragon Medical speech recognition software from Burlington, Mass.-based Nuance.

The Army's investment in Dragon Medical is part of MEDCOM AHLTA Provider Satisfaction (MAPS), an initiative of the U.S. Army Surgeon General to enhance clinicians' experience with AHLTA, the military's electronic health record system.

In addition to caregiver satisfaction and efficiency, improving the delivery of healthcare to patients is at the forefront of MAPS. The Army has invested in technology including touch-screen laptop computers and wireless networks as well as speech recognition software. The technology provides universal access to critical information for timely and necessary correspondence tailored for each clinician and patient, Army officials say.

"The use of voice-recognition software with the AHLTA e-health record system is freeing doctors from several hours of typing into AHLTA their various patient notes each week," said. Robert Bell Walker, European Regional Medical Command AHLTA consultant and a family practice physician for the military. "Being able to speak notes into an e-health record at the patient's beside - rather than staring at a computer screen typing - also helps improve doctors' bedside manner and allows them to narrate more comprehensive notes while the patients are there, or right after a visit. That cuts down on mistakes caused by memory lapses and boosts the level of details that are included in a patient record."

With the proper training and associated deployment services, clinicians can be up and running within a matter of hours, according to Nuance.

Dragon Medical encrypts all automatically saved audio files using FIPS 140-2 encryption, supporting patient confidentiality and helping healthcare provider organizations comply with HIPAA regulations.

"President Obama's pledge for medical records to be fully digital within five years has put major pressure on the 80 percent of doctors that have yet to migrate from paper to electronic patient records," said John Shagoury, president of Nuance's healthcare division. "While the Army and a budding population of physicians have succeeded in this transition, many doctors struggle because of the need to document via the keyboard and mouse."

The Army's use of speech-enabled clinical information systems to improve physician performance, satisfaction and patient care is a model for physicians to consider as they make the EHR transition, Shagoury said.

AMEDD went live with its full suite of MAPS clinical IT solutions, including Dragon Medical, at 16 medical treatment facility sites on Jan. 20.