Speech Recognition System Technology Developed for HIS, RIS/PACS

A new agreement sets a milestone for the adoption of industrial-grade speech recognition in healthcare

Royal Philips Electronics (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) recently reported that it has signed a global licensing agreement with Microsoft Corp. to bring industrial grade speech recognition to Microsoft's Amalga family of enterprise healthcare systems. Microsoft will offer Philips SpeechMagic to customers using Microsoft Amalga hospital information system (Amalga HIS) and Amalga radiology information systems/picture archiving and communication systems (RIS/PACS), with the goal of helping healthcare providers generate accurate, actionable information that is sharable, searchable, and contributes to making clinical improvements. The agreement is another endorsement of the strength and quality of the award winning SpeechMagic platform.

"Microsoft and Philips share a common vision: access to timely and accurate information at the point-of-care contributes to making hospitals safer and more productive,” said Marcel Wassink, CEO of Philips Speech Recognition Systems (Vienna, Austria). "Moreover, giving healthcare professionals access to SpeechMagic within Microsoft's Amalga HIS and Amalga RIS/PACS solutions improves usability and reduces the learning curve for medical professionals.”

Amalga HIS is built around an electronic health record (EHR) and it includes complete patient and bed management as well as an integrated RIS and a PACS.

"Ensuring seamless information sharing across the enterprise requires that input from various departments and sources, such as medical notes, discharge summaries, or ward visits, is captured and stored in a standardized format. SpeechMagic's advanced technology and ongoing research in the field of semantic interoperability will allow us to quickly bring advanced information capture to Amalga HIS and Amalga RIS/PACS customers around the globe,” said Steve Shihadeh, vice president, Microsoft Health Solutions Group.

Microsoft Health Solutions Group (Ann Arbor, MI, USA) and Philips Speech Recognition Systems will immediately start the process of integrating their technologies.

Royal Philips Electronics (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) announced on October 1, 2008, that it has sold Philips Speech Recognition Systems to U.S.-based Nuance Communications, Inc. (Burlington, MA, USA).

Related Links:
Philips Speech Recognition Systems
Microsoft Health Solutions Group
Nuance Communications