Nuance to show vital role of voice recognition in UAE's drive for digital health revolution at Arab Health 2013

Nuance will be exhibiting with its regional distribution partner, Abu Dhabi-based Emerging Technologies at Saeed 1, stand S1D70.

Visitors to Arab Health will be able to learn about the benefits of adopting voice recognition across the hospital enterprise using the company's latest voice recognition solutions software and its ability to improve medical reporting quality and efficiency.

Removing the need to write longhand and thus eliminate the errors from secretaries transcribing notes Nuance healthcare's solutions will show how voice recognition saves time and improves accuracy.

Working with regional partner Emerging Technologies, Nuance Healthcare is able to provide a localized service for customers across the Middle East, providing a voice recognition solution for the multi-lingual, multi-cultural community of doctors in the region.

The software is capable of learning and adapting to its users and is able to recognize different accents, making the native language of the user no barrier to the ability to enjoy the benefits of the technology.

Also, the Ministry of Health of the United Arab Emirates decided to award Nuance Communications and partner Emerging Technologies a contract to roll out voice recognition in a first phase to over 1000 medical professionals at the country's hospitals and clinics in 2012.

Visitors to their stand will be able to learn of first-hand experiences of using speech recognition in the region. The initiative is part of the Wareed project - a healthcare improvement drive aimed at revolutionizing the quality, safety and efficiency of public healthcare delivery through a fully integrated digital healthcare system. So far, three of the Emirates' busiest hospitals have gone live with Dragon Medical, introduced to help selected teams of doctors, radiologists, surgeons and some pathologists. Eventually, 15 hospitals as well as 68 other medical facilities will be equipped with the system. The Ministry of Health will also be demonstrating speech recognition applications on their booth (5B50).

"Before Speech Recognition, medical reporting had been a very difficult process," said Dr Somaya Abdullatif Al Zaraooni, Head of Pediatrics at one of the first hospitals to take on Dragon, Al Qassimi Hospital. "Our secretaries had so much trouble transcribing our notes and there was a lot of time wasted on correcting mistakes, especially with spelling. The new technology means that we can dictate our notes immediately, the information in the reports has improved, the whole issue of correcting spelling mistakes has been removed — and speed has dramatically increased."

"With the help of our partner, Emerging Technologies, the footprint of speech recognition is rapidly growing in the Middle East region. The Ministry of Health of the United Arab Emirates is leading the way in revolutionizing healthcare across the country through the use of electronic medical records and the adoption of speech recognition technology. The Sheikh Khalifa Medical City in Abu Dhabi and many other healthcare facilities across the Middle East have also recognized that speech recognition is an essential tool for supporting advanced healthcare systems. I invite visitors to Arab Health to visit our stand and see at first hand the range of benefits that speech recognition can bring to their healthcare services," said Lincoln Payne, Sales Director for Nuance Healthcare in the region.

Nuance partners NoemaLife (booth ZN70) and Fujifilm (booth S2C30) will also be at Arab Health.