Nuance and Epic Join Forces on Artificial Intelligence to Revolutionize Disabled Veterans Accessibility to Health IT

ORLANDO, FL – February 21, 2017 —Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) and Epic announce that the companies are joining forces to create more access and job opportunities for disabled persons scheduling medical appointments. The new innovations, powered by Nuance’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology and Epic’s Electronic Health Record (EHR) system, include a hands-free virtual assistant, which is available for demonstration at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Convention and Exhibition February 20-24 in Orlando.

There are nearly 20 million military veterans in the U.S., and 4 million have service-connected disabilities. Scheduling medical appointments for our nation’s veterans may be an extremely difficult task without assistance. Together, Epic’s EHR paired with Nuance’s healthcare virtual assistant technology, Florence, provide an AI-powered conversational user interface and simple design that makes technology easy to use by supporting intuitive voice-driven interactions, such as scheduling an appointment in seconds. Voice-driven workflows will be featured as part of the Medical Appointment Scheduling System program (MASS), a nationwide deployment of Epic scheduling software in VA Medical Centers, improving veterans’ access to care.

Leveraging Nuance’s long history of delivering assistive technology and conversational solutions with Epic’s award-winning EHR will help people with disabilities gain independence and improved access to the information they need fast and securely. Nuance has delivered speech recognition technology to the U.S. Veteran’s Health Administration System through long-standing relationships across the health system, which includes 14,000 physicians across 152 hospitals supporting more than 8 million patients annually. Timely and accurate information is critical to enhance efficiency and patient care, and Nuance’s next-generation clinical documentation solutions also support all branches of the Department of Defense at hundreds of facilities across the U.S and overseas.

“Nuance has invested heavily over the last decade to develop conversational and cognitive virtual assistant and AI technologies that will improve the experience of patients, employees and providers to support our mission of delivering solutions that help our clients deliver better patient care without technology getting in the way,” said Satish Maripuri, executive vice president and general manager of the Healthcare Division, Nuance. “This is an important invaluable initiative to help our nation’s veterans get what they need faster and to become more independent. It is an honor and a privilege to do this work on their behalf. We are very focused on such deeply-embedded solutions to drive value for our clients.”

“We are very proud of our work with Nuance to embed their advanced AI technology into Epic’s EHR to deliver next-generation assistive capabilities to our nation’s veterans,” said Carl Dvorak, president, Epic. “By going above and beyond what is required by Section 508, Epic is focused on delivering a completely new experience to those veterans that have suffered physical disabilities due to their service to our country.”

To see a demonstration of the first step in empowering the disabled veteran community, visit Epic Booth #1143 or Nuance booth #2546 at HIMSS.

Nuance provides intelligent systems that support a more natural and insightful approach to clinical documentation, freeing clinicians to spend more time caring for patients. Nuance healthcare solutions capture, improve and communicate more than 300 million patient stories each year helping more than 500,000 clinicians in 10,000 global healthcare organizations to drive meaningful clinical and financial outcomes. Nuance’s award-winning clinical speech recognition, medical transcription, CDI, coding, quality and medical imaging solutions provide a more complete and accurate view of patient care.

Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more information, please visit nuance.com. Connect with Nuance on social media through the healthcare blog, What’s next, as well as LinkedIn, and Twitter.

About Epic
Epic Systems Corporation is a privately-held healthcare software company helping to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of health services across the care continuum. Epic’s community of customers provide care for nearly 60 percent of patients in the U.S. and include the vast majority of the top ranked health systems, physician groups and medical schools.

Trademark reference: Nuance Florence is a registered trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other company names or product names referenced herein may be the property of their respective owners.