MedQuist Holdings has announced the unification of the Company’s speech and language understanding technologies, medical transcription, coding, HIM professional services and analytics under the name M*Modal. Shares of the Company’s common stock will begin trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “MODL” on January 25, 2012.

The Company will celebrate the launch of M*Modal with the Opening Bell ceremony at the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York City’s Times Square at 9:30 a.m. ET today.

“Aligning our technology and services is a natural evolution of our stated Company direction as we work to deliver solutions that help hospitals, physicians and other providers improve care while addressing many of the significant challenges facing healthcare today,” said Vern Davenport, Chairman and CEO of M*Modal. “Our deep experience in medical transcription, coding and clinical documentation workflow combined with industry-leading innovative technology and a focus on the healthcare market provides us with a strong platform to grow our core business, expand to underpenetrated markets and increase our partners within the healthcare ecosystem while investing in new technology offerings.”

In August 2011, MedQuist Holdings, the nation’s largest provider of medical transcription and a leader in technology-enabled clinical documentation workflow, merged with M*Modal, a leader in advanced Speech and Natural Language Understanding technology. “The decision to consolidate global operations under the M*Modal name illustrates our progression from a services-focused business to a provider of technology-enabled services and commercialized proprietary technology solutions,” Davenport added.

The move also supports the Company’s plans to expand the core transcription business, open new markets, significantly increase the sales force and development resources, as well as leverage its significant intellectual property portfolio.

M*Modal clients now have access to end-to-end clinical documentation solutions that help caregivers capture the patient’s complete clinical story and extract meaningful information used to populate electronic health records (EHRs) and automate the data used to feed business processes such as coding, billing and revenue cycle management.

“In the past, much of the patient’s story was locked in the transcription text. Opportunities to share information were missed because there was no connection between the text and other data systems,” said Davenport. “Today, our tools aren’t just converting voice to text – they’re analyzing that text and identifying critical information that provides a higher degree of insight and richer context for improved clinical and financial decision making.”

“M*Modal has worked with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center supporting patient care through a blend of technology and services. We look forward to the services this integration makes possible,” says Lynn Vogel, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, MD Anderson Cancer Center.

The Company’s technology-enabled services include cloud-based Speech Understanding technology that allows physicians to capture the patient’s story anywhere, anytime using any electronic device, as well as Natural Language Understanding technology that instantly converts the narrative into structured clinical documents that can be shared and integrated with existing workflows or EHRs. Additional M*Modal tools – such as Computer-Assisted Coding for ICD-10 migration – automate business practices, enhance reporting capabilities and enable comprehensive analysis that increases productivity and optimizes revenue.

“KLAS is excited to track the progress of client success for the new M*Modal,” said Adam Gale, President of KLAS. “The combination of new, energizing technology and a forward-thinking leadership team should bring positive results for providers across the country. Both service delivery and innovation are elements derived from vendor organizational strength, and the ability to execute changes at the leadership level are evidentiary of that vendor’s desire to provide the utmost of quality to customers. Already we see excitement from providers who are buying into the vision.”

By focusing on three main areas: engagement (capturing the patient’s story); collaboration (sharing that story with care teams and integrating it with existing business processes like coding); and intelligence (extracting meaningful data that satisfies reporting requirements and enables better clinical and financial decisions), M*Modal’s solutions accelerate EHR adoption, enhance regulatory compliance, and provide deeper insight that supports the introduction of new care delivery models.

Currently, the Company provides technologies and services to 2,400 hospitals and clinics – including some of the nation’s leading healthcare institutions, 850 physician practices, and 165,000 physicians, as well as leading EHR providers and medical transcription organizations.

VoiceHIT, a New Orleans-based start-up, has launched a web-based smart electronic health record platform, called the Better Day™ EHR & Documentation Solution. Powered by Nuance Healthcare’s secure, cloud-based, medical speech recognition technology on iOS and Android-based mobile devices, the Better Day™ EHR empowers providers to document patient encounters in real-time via voice without the need for a computer or tablet device.

“By leveraging natural, context-based speech-to-text, the Better Day™ platform provides a better, more complete way for providers to document patient encounters, which in turn takes computers out from in between patients and providers, ultimately improving the relationships providers have with their patients,” said VoiceHIT CEO Peter Ragusa, MD, MPH. “The Nuance Healthcare Development Platform offers unique innovations that empower Better Day™ users to speak naturally during encounters while the information necessary for robust documentation is collected in the background, increasing provider productivity while enhancing the quality of the clinical experience for both patients and providers.”

The Better Day EHR platform enables healthcare providers to passively and unobtrusively collect clinical information at the point of care, significantly reducing manual data entry, typed or transcribed, by up to 75 percent. In doing so, the Better Day™ EHR platform gives providers more time with patients to deliver higher-quality care.

According to the company the Better Day EHR Platform will initially be targeted to small and mid-sized ambulatory clinics and the platform will accommodate all specialties.  As the company grows they plan on expanding into larger clinics, hospital systems and healthcare organizations.

Users of the Better Day EHR platform will reap the productivity and financial benefits of a secure, industry-leading medical speech recognition technology in order to automate clinical documentation – further improving operating efficiencies and raising the quality of patient care while reducing overall costs. The medical transcription, billing and coding industries represent an approximately $14.2 billion annual market.

The Better Day™ EHR’s platform and application suite is planned for beta release in early 2012 with a general release scheduled for Q3 of 2012.

In a recession hit market as USA, even the medical industry, which is closely connected to the critical aspect of human life, is not less affected. Therefore, it is not strange to see clinics and hospitals in US resorting to cost cutting measures and going in for affordable outsourced services. Medical Transcription, the prerequisite for medical documentation in modern times, has received obvious significance as an outsourced service in recent years, with affordability being considered one major aspect., and looking to the increased demand of medical transcription operators and services in US alone, this will continue to be in focus, for variety of reasons including cost-effectiveness.

As a major attribute associated to medical transcription, comes the convenience to document the sequence of events carried out between a doctor and his patient. This facilitates documenting the most crucial details involved in any case in the form of a soft copy, post medical transcription of a given audio record. This way, hospitals get all the details such as patient’s health profile, medication and consultation provided by concerned physician, along with every minute point so as to carry out his treatment, by way of medical transcription. Needless to emphasize, if hospitals don’t take help of medical transcription services, they must be doing it through in-house resources. In other words, hospitals or clinics save considerable amount of time, resources and cost by hiring a medical transcription service provider.

When cost is a concern, you can never think of spending lavishly & medical transcription is no exception in that respect. The present online buzz has simplified things for better, as medical transcription services can be as well availed overseas. Sitting in US, a hospital management can employ a medical transcription agency in India or elsewhere and still ensure up-to-date documentation of its medical records. When medical transcription within the country is not coming reasonably, hospitals prefer the overseas way & grab good deals with a medical transcription agencies located abroad.

A handy modus operandi is another feature coming with medical transcription. When hospitals lead the medical transcription way, they indirectly simplify the job of their support staff & back office workers who might be less acquainted with intricate medical terminology. A good medical transcription agency will usually ensure that it produces medical documents that are multipurpose & easy to understand at every interface. So the objective to generate a simplified version of the most complex lingo spelled out by medical practitioners gets met through this document generated by medical transcription provider.

In a country like USA, essentiality of medical transcription cannot be less stressed also because documenting patient details & health records is mandatory for hospitals. Furthermore, healthcare facility centers are operated in high-tech environment and therefore, professional functioning of these centers can be ensured only with the expertise coming with medical transcription specialists. Ideally, such medical transcription service providers use high degree of security channels such as HITECH or HIPAA Compliance and ensure a secure & authentic edge to medical documentation.

Affordability is definitely one aspect when zeroing down on a medical transcription agency within the US or abroad, but given the assorted advantages coming along with medical transcription services, hospitals can look forward to a really sophisticated work environments in their purview.

iMedX Inc.,  healthcare software and services company, announced today that it has completed the acquisition of assets from Abacus Transcriptions Inc.  With this acquisition, iMedX adds Abacus’ many clinics and solo practitioners in the Houston, Texas area to its clinic customer base.

As a result of this acquisition, iMedX will benefit from an expanded base of clinic customers in Houston. Abacus’ customers will have access to advanced transcription technology management through iMedX’s Internet-based medical document management platform - TurboScribe®, as well as iMedX’s stand-alone electronic prescribing software solution for small practices – TurboRx®. Additionally with iMedX’s recent offering enabling EMR implementation through transcription, doctors will remain productive even as EMR’s are being implemented.

Venkat Sharma, iMedX’s President and CEO, along with the current iMedX management team, will lead the combined companies. Abacus’ production and operations team will continue to support and grow its loyal customer base as Abacus’ customers are integrated into iMedX.

“Abacus has developed a loyal customer base in Houston by providing quality transcription services,” said Mr. Sharma. “We are pleased to have the Abacus family join iMedX. Abacus customers will benefit greatly from iMedX’s paperless technology and innovative subscription-based healthcare information solutions, and will progress towards compliance with the new ‘meaningful use’ requirements placed on electronic medical records.”

Nuance Communications, Inc. has announced that it has been honored with a Best in KLAS award, ranking eScription, one of Nuance’s leading solutions for clinical documentation as #1 within the speech recognition category for the eighth consecutive year. The Nuance Healthcare portfolio holds multiple top-ranked positions within the 2011 Best in KLAS Awards: Software & Services report including Dragon Medical Practice Edition and PowerScribe 360 Reporting, which are among some of the highest-rated voice recognition solutions.

According to Nuance’s review of past Top 20 Best in KLAS Awards reports, Nuance is one of only three other healthcare IT vendors that have achieved a Best in KLAS product award for the past eight consecutive years. Driven solely from healthcare information technology (HIT) customer feedback, these annual rankings are determined from product evaluations, confidential interviews and thorough analysis of performance data over the past 12 months (November 2010 — November 2011). As noted in the 2011 Best in KLAS Awards: Software & Services report, 98 percent of customers surveyed indicated they would buy Nuance’s eScription solution again.

“The market’s recognition of Nuance’s leadership in voice recognition is validation of the technology foundation and customer service excellence that Nuance is committed to delivering in healthcare,” said Janet Dillione, executive vice president and general manager, Nuance Healthcare. “Through the delivery of our proven and new voice-driven solutions, we’re working with more than 10,000 healthcare organizations globally to optimize the capture of high-quality clinical data. Clinical documentation is one of the most undervalued resources that we have in healthcare and when it is built from rich, accurate information there is tremendous opportunity to extend its value.”

The #1 KLAS-ranked Nuance Healthcare solution, eScription, is renowned for its unprecedented ability to help healthcare organizations achieve cost savings. To date, eScription has helped more than 300 healthcare organizations save costs; of these, 39 healthcare organizations have saved one million dollars or more — cumulatively adding up to more than $140 million in savings. Over the years, the eScription solution has evolved beyond its excellence in background voice recognition workflow and medical transcription productivity to encompass full integration as part of the Electronic Health Record.

“Five years ago, we identified eScription as the perfect solution for Intermountain Healthcare to leverage as we set out to centralize, standardize, and lower the cost of transcription services,” said Susie Oborn, corporate manager transcription services, Intermountain Healthcare. “Today, eScription continues to be the perfect solution for us as we have achieved all our goals, including over $5 million dollars in savings. Additionally, the enhanced Quality Assurance features available within the latest version of eScription are helping us in our pursuit of excellence in documentation quality. eScription has exceeded our expectations.”

Nuance’s voice-enabled, clinical understanding solutions empower healthcare organizations to capture structured and unstructured clinical data anytime, anywhere with limited disruption to clinical workflow. Whether a doctor is capturing information from a laptop, desktop, telephone, through a transcriptionist or through a mobile device, with Nuance Healthcare solutions, the whole patient story can be captured. For information on all of Nuance’s capture anywhere solutions visit: http://www.nuance.com/for-healthcare/capture-anywhere/index.htm

2011 Best in KLAS Awards were determined based on 25 performance criteria in five categories: Sales and Contracting; Implementation and Training; Functionality and Upgrades; Service and Support; and General. KLAS, a market research firm, published its latest findings in the 2011 Best in KLAS Awards: Software & Services report (December 2011).

AMIA, the leading professional association for informatics professionals, concluded its 6^th Annual Health Policy Meeting this week in Washington, DC. Meeting participants identified numerous limitations with existing data capture, recording and documentation approaches, systems and processes.

As a result, users often experience significant frustrations such as data overload, documentation redundancies, and data entry inefficiencies.  Furthermore, technological capabilities such as the emergence and convergence of devices are outpacing current public policies.  At the same time, potentially outdated legacy documentation requirements are hampering source data capture and documentation and hindering innovations in health information technology design.

Caitlin Cusack, MD, MPH, Principal Insight Informatics and the AMIA Policy Meeting Steering Committee Chair, emphasized, “With documentation and data capture being significant areas of dissatisfaction for clinicians using electronic health records, it is crucial to re-assess current regulations and policies that drive those practices, especially as pressure to adopt technology becomes increasingly intense. “

Meeting attendees, who are all leaders from various public and private sector organizations involved in expanding the use of informatics and health information technology (health IT), discussedtheir visions for achieving the “ideal” future state of technology-enabled data capture and documentation. Participants also helped to refine AMIA’s proposed guiding principles for clinical data capture and documentation, and proposed attributes for high-quality clinical information.

AMIA Board Chair-elect Gil Kuperman, MD, PhD, FACMI, and Director, Interoperability Informatics, New York-Presbyterian Hospital noted, “ It was important for us to consider the strengths and weaknesses of current approaches to clinical documentation and data capture from multiple stakeholder perspectives in order to  identify knowledge gaps and research priorities.“

George Hripcsak, MD, MS, FACMI, Chair, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University and Vice Chair of the AMIA Policy Meeting Steering Committee, emphasized “that there are potential shortcomings to current approaches, which can impede efficient data capture and presentation, misrepresent clinicians’ thinking, and interfere with clinical workflow.”

More than 80 participants attended the AMIA meeting, including leaders from various Federal agencies, such as the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).   Jon White, MD, Director of the Health IT Portfolio at AHRQ and Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM, National Coordinator, ONC participated as plenary session speakers.

Edward H. Shortliffe, MD, PhD, FACMI, president and CEO of AMIA, emphasized that “from personal experience I can attest that entering patient data, often following non-intuitive series of screens or clicks, can be a source of tremendous frustration and inefficiency for busy clinicians.  I am therefore delighted that our meeting participants confirmed that the need for high quality data underlies all clinical work and that enhancing ways to assure efficient data capture and documentation is critical to achieving the Nation’s strategy for high quality health and healthcare.”

AMIA will broadly disseminate meeting findings and policy recommendations as well as strategies to promote widespread dissemination and application of the guiding principles and information attributes. A formal report will be forthcoming.  For more information about the meeting please visit:http://www.amia.org/meetings-and-events/2011-annual-health-policy-invitational-meeting.

me2me AG, the developers of the industry changing Frisbee Transcription Workflow & Dictation Solution with Speech Understanding announced today that they are participating and exhibiting in “Medica-2011”, a prestigious world renowned medical exhibition being held in Düsseldorf, Germany from November 16 through 19th.

me2me, AG is taking this great opportunity to announce and demonstrate Frisbee Enterprise transcription & dictation platform at this exhibition with a remarkable “Speech Understanding” solution powered by M*Modal. Speech Understanding™ is a solution that interfaces with both “back-end” as well as front-end speech recognition.

Frisbee Enterprise with M*Modal’s Speech Understanding™ provides functionality that goes beyond traditional speech recognition and enables Healthcare Organizations to efficiently create high quality, meaningful clinical  documentation at an affordable price. Where traditional speech recognition turns audio into flat text, M*Modal’s Speech Understanding automatically translates a physician’s dictation into a structured, meaningful and understandable document. When created and shared, it provides the most effective way to populate an EHR/EMR system or specialty information systems, such as radiology, pathology and emergency department, with structured, interoperable clinical documentation. This is all done to help our clients save time, money, and reduce stress.

“Our efforts are to help the healthcare community where Speech Recognition is a feature widely requested and needed by users” said Peter Hauser CEO of me2me AG. “The M*Modal’s cloud-based software is a technology that does not require the physicians to spend time “training” the software or that needs any special hardware, such as servers. This is just one of the many things that clearly set us apart from other solutions. We feel we are better equipped to help the “ever evolving” healthcare facilities while reducing their costs.

“We are very proud of the technological agreement signed with M*Modal whose solution is used by seven of the top ten medical transcription service organizations in the US”, continued Peter Hauser.  Thanks to M*Modal Speech Understanding solution, me2me will be able to offer its dictation and workflow management solution Frisbee to all size healthcare customers, including single providers. We will also be able to enhance our offerings to include the European markets by adding multiple languages such as German and French, to name a few.”

M*Modal’s solution is hosted in a secure and stable off-site data center where customers can connect from any secure connection. Frisbee Enterprise is also connected to the secure data center and manages all the clinical notes, reports, and documents in a secure manner.

As a result of this strategic partnership, me2me is now able to offer a very unique and stable solution to its current and future clients. This enables all clients to easily convert speech into their own customized structured clinical formats. The Speech Understanding technology feature powered by M*Modal is an optional feature with the Frisbee Enterprise solution.

me2me AG, the developers of the Frisbee Transcription Workflow  & Dictation Solution with Speech Recognition announced today that they release Frisbee Smartfor iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch®, a new app that turns the smartphone into a digital dictation device, making dictation available to all Frisbee solutions users but also to other professional digital dictation solutions.

Frisbee Smart allows physicians, lawyers, experts, journalists and many others whose work requires them to be away from their PCs to enjoy the benefits of an advanced digital dictation workflow solution, even while on the go. me2me’s Frisbee Smart app enables users to dictate from any place allowing users to send audio files to be transcribed. Since this app turns the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into a wireless digital dictation device, users send their dictation to the transcriptionist of their choice or to an FTP server, using one of the multiple data transfer protocols available or a simple WIFI connection.

“Our easy to use functionalities provide professionals the capabilities of using the mobile device the same way they utilized their traditional digital dictation device but also includes a full set of innovative features such as overwriting/inserting dictations; four selectable audio quality, all optimized for speech recognition; voice activation for hands free dictation; Bluetooth™ headset compatibility, allowing free movement; file size control, in order not to exceed the maximum file size of the receiving mailbox; and a range of languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian” said Daniel Hall, CTO of me2me.

In addition, Frisbee Smart app includes features such as:

• Lossless compression method
• Optional Barcode scanner to allow a barcode to be automatically assigned to the opened dictation
• Easy-to-use touch screen controls

Frisbee Smart can also be integrated directly with electronic health record (EHR) systems professionals to dictate directly into the EHR application to increase their own productivity.

“The iPhone has become a mobile business tool for many professionals who want to use it for dictation purposes, in order to avoid carrying multiple devices and to cut costs” said Peter Hauser, CEO of me2me AG.  “We are very excited to offer a solution that allows iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users to access a solution that easily integrates with Frisbee, our base dictation workflow system. We are also very proud to announce that Frisbee Smart can be used by any professional who wants to dictate with the iPhone but works with another digital dictation solution. Thanks to the Frisbee Converter, a small piece of software that works in conjunction with Frisbee Smart, audio files can be converted into the correct audio format utilized by other digital dictation software companies”.

me2me offers users the ability to try the Frisbee Smart application before purchasing it.  The free version of Frisbee Smart can be downloaded from the App Store. The free version is limited to 5 dictations of 30 seconds each. The full version of Frisbee Smart can be purchased at any time from one of me2me ’s certified partners.

Healthcare technology provider SynaMed, LLC is excited to announce a partnership with StenTel, a national transcription company and provider of clinical documentation solutions.  This partnership will combine their platforms and allow healthcare providers to utilize advanced transcription services while benefiting from a Meaningful Use certified EMR.

SynaMed provides medical practices with a turnkey electronic medical record solution. StenTel, based in Massachusetts, offers transcription services to health providers. By taking advantage of these combined services, physicians can maintain their current workflow, improve clinical documentation, and meet Meaningful Use criteria — thus qualifying for government incentives.

“StenTel is extremely pleased to have completed the integration of a seamless workflow that bridges the gap between old school and new,” said George Catuogno, president of StenTel.

How it works: Healthcare providers dictate to the transcription company, which then types the provider’s note. StenTel’s integrated natural language processing (NLP) scrubs the note and organizes important information into coded, discrete data fields in an XML format that is transferred to SynaMed. SynaMed uses that data to populate the EMR.

“We call it ‘Meaningful Use by Dictation’,” Holly DeMuro, SynaMed Director of Operations, said of the innovative venture.

“Productivity is a ‘practical use’ issue,” Catuogno said. “For many clinicians, dictation is the most practical way to maintain patient loads without working longer hours or to work the same hours without losing revenue. The workflow created by StenTel and SynaMed is the ideal marriage between protecting the asset of dictation while supporting adoption of a certified EMR.”

“Using the combined systems of SynaMed and StenTel is also less costly than revamping a practice to implement an EMR,” DeMuro said.

Catuogno goes on to explain, “The additional benefit is the low cost of this solution and ability to gain the Meaningful Use dollars. It’s a meaningful, practical and affordable option that we’re confident will excite the marketplace and stimulate greater adoption of electronic health records.”

SynaMed’s web-based solution provides total access to medical records while decreasing hardware, installation, and networking costs.

According to a recent Government Health IT Article, there was a significant uptick in physician and hospital signups for participation in the meaningful use incentive programs in August.  During the month there were an additional 13,000 providers that registered, representing a 30% increase in signups over the month of July.

The updated total of registered eligible providers and hospitals taking part of in the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs has grown to 90,000.

Other highlights of the article include:

• 1,300 physicians and eligible providers received payments in August – a 23% increase over July
• $264 million in incentive money paid out in August, bringing the total to $652 million for the year

So – as of August 31st there were 90,000 registered providers and payments have now been issued to 5,800 of them.  That’s a slight improvement in the ratio over last month but at some point in the not to distant future I’d expect to see a much higher percentage of those registered for participation receiving checks.

Overall stats for the program to date:

• Registrations:                                                  90,000
• Checks Received:                                              5,800
• % of Registrations to receive checks:              6.4%

As mentioned last month one possible reason for the small number of payments is that in order to qualify for payments in 2011  providers must not only attest that they can demonstrate meaningful use but meet the threshold of $24,000 for allowed charges in claims for covered services to Medicare beneficiaries during 2011.  Approaching the end of the year we can assume that more practices will meet that threshold.