Nuance Communications has acquired Webmedx, the Atlanta-based transcription services provider. Officials say the deal will strengthen Nuance Transcription Services, and that Webmedx’s natural language processing-driven Quality Analytics application enhances Nuance’s clinical language understanding technology.
 
“Webmedx’s award-winning clinical documentation services and technology strengthens and expands Nuance’s work with healthcare organizations as they undertake EHR adoption and strive to achieve meaningful use,” said Janet Dillione, executive vice president and general manager, Nuance Healthcare.

She added that Webmedx "will help to accelerate Nuance’s efforts to extend the power of its speech-driven solutions so that clinicians’ spoken words are not simply transformed into text, but through clinical understanding solutions can be used for clinical decision making, leading to improved patient care and a reduction in overall healthcare costs.”

[See also: MedQuist to acquire M*Modal.]
 
The acquisition of Webmedx should complement Nuance’s presence in the healthcare market and accelerate the future development of clinical understanding solutions that can reduce costs and improve processes for the healthcare industry.

Webmedx’s customers include more than 100 leading hospitals including Bon Secours, and Catholic Healthcare West. By complementing the Nuance Transcription Services offering with medical transcription services from Webmedx, officials say, organizations will have an increased array of options for the rapidly growing market of speech editing and transcription services.

Webmedx also brings to Nuance its Medical Technology Education Center (MTEC), the first Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity-approved online speech recognition editing and medical transcription school. MTEC is a unique training resource focused on clinical documentation.


[See also: KLAS: Medical transcription market is 'volatile' .]

Webmedx has made significant advancements in the conversion of unstructured, dictated/speech-recognized text into structured and actionable clinical information, aligning well with Nuance’s strategy and investments in Clinical Understanding technologies, say officials. Together, the companies will accelerate the delivery of healthcare IT solutions that can advance quality analytics to support meaningful use, enhance the revenue cycle and improve patient care and compliance.
 
“Through the delivery of high-quality, speech-enabled medical transcription services, Webmedx has focused on improving the clinical documentation process while upholding high levels of customer satisfaction,” said Webmedx CEO Sean Carroll. “Together with Nuance, we can expand upon and advance the physician-centric documentation services and solutions we provide, bring our award-winning services to a broader market, grow upon our customers’ satisfaction, and contribute to Nuance’s progressive efforts in clinical language understanding.”