CHICAGO, Nov. 30, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Nuance
Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) and the The National Decision
Support Company (NDSC) today jointly announced a new integrated set
of clinical decision support and collaboration capabilities that
utilize the American College of Radiology's (ACR) Imaging 3.0™
tools to enable radiologists and healthcare provider organizations
to comply with current and emerging value-based payment models.
By combining clinical decision support, radiology reporting and
image sharing technology to open communications channels and
provide real-time information sharing between radiologists and
ordering physicians, the integrated solutions advance quality
initiatives while driving accuracy and efficiency in healthcare.
Nuance and NDSC are offering unmatched Imaging 3.0 support to help
healthcare providers:
- Ensure the most clinically-appropriate imaging exams are
ordered for patients;
- Enable real-time consults between a subspecialty radiologist
using Nuance PowerScribe® 360 and the ordering physician
when imaging guidance is needed;
- Identify via the PowerShare™ Network when duplicate
exams exist and make these available for easy review; and,
- Improve the quality of the radiology report by utilizing the
latest clinical evidence and follow-up recommendations within
PowerScribe 360.
Clinical decision support to physicians ordering imaging
exams
By leveraging ACR Select™, nationally-recognized
Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) published by the American College of
Radiology and exclusively licensed by NDSC, physicians are guided
to order the most clinically-appropriate exam for a patient while
working within their native electronic health record (EHR)
workflow. ACR Select, which is widely deployed and integrated with
major EHRs, is used by physicians nearly one million times per
month when seeking clinically-validated imaging guidance when
ordering exams. This helps healthcare providers comply with federal
law that will require physicians to consult qualified decision
support criteria when ordering Medicare outpatient advanced imaging
exams.
Radiologists' real-time consultations with ordering
physicians
Real-time consultations between ordering
physicians and radiologists using Nuance PowerScribe 360 is a key
to ensuring the most appropriate exam is ordered, especially in
complex cases where ACR Select does not yield a definitive
automatic recommendation. In order to support these specialty
consultations within both the ordering workflow in the EHR and
within the radiologist's reporting workflow, Nuance and NDSC have
developed a communications channel between PowerScribe360 and ACR
Select.
"Leveraging the feedback provided by ACR Select, together with
consultation features enabled through this integrated solution
creates an invaluable communication channel between healthcare
providers to improve the quality of service when it is needed
most," said Mike Mardini, CEO of
NDSC. "Because it's documented, a value can be placed on the
consultation process. In fact, this kind of guided, peer-to-peer
sub-specialty consultation model represents a clinically oriented,
less intrusive and less expensive alternative to traditional
Radiology Benefit Management (RBM) prior authorization, and enables
radiologists to take on stewardship a role of the imaging care
decision."
Eliminating duplicate imaging exams using Nuance PowerShare
Network
To help alleviate the problem of unnecessary imaging
exams, Nuance and NDSC have integrated ACR Select with Nuance
PowerShare Image Sharing to enable providers and payers to access a
much richer longitudinal imaging record for the patient at the time
of order. This alerts ordering physicians to similar imaging
procedures recently performed and allows them to review these
patient medical images, thereby improving the quality of care while
simultaneously reducing duplicate exams and unnecessary patient
radiation exposure.
Clinical decision support for the highest quality diagnostic
interpretation
PowerScribe 360 has also been extended with
ACR Assist, a collection of structured information, taxonomies and
clinical content, bringing evidence-based guidelines directly to
radiologists working within PowerScribe 360 during the
interpretation process. This helps structure radiology reports,
improving the consistency and completeness of these diagnostic
interpretations. This structure is the foundation to creating
important outcomes data when linked with order appropriateness data
generated by ACR Select.
"By integrating the ACR clinical content with PowerScribe 360,
the most trusted solution for radiology reporting, and PowerShare,
the nation's largest network for medical image sharing, Nuance and
NDSC are tightly connecting the ordering provider and radiologist
during the ordering and diagnostic interpretation process,
fundamentally enabling new ways for radiology to deliver
value-based imaging services as alternative payment models
accelerate," said Peter Durlach,
senior vice president of healthcare marketing and strategy, Nuance
Communications.
"We are proud to see the ACR's rich history in developing
evidence-based criteria being delivered at the point of care to
thousands of our members. These partners demonstrate the type of
collaborative platforms that will be needed to connect the ordering
provider to the radiologist within the context of the EMR,
reporting and imaging workflows. When combined with the delivery
capabilities of vendors, tools such as ACR Select and ACR Assist
can help radiology not only participate in, but actually shape the
future of value-based radiology services," said Mike Tilkin, CIO of the American College of
Radiology.
For demonstrations of these new value-based imaging solutions,
please visit the Nuance booth #4729 at the Radiological Society of
North America conference (RSNA 2015) November 29 – December 4,
2015.
About 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:
www.nuance.com/for-healthcare. Connect with Nuance on social media
through the healthcare blog, What's next, as well as
Twitter and LinkedIn.
About NDSC
National Decision Support Company provides
integrated solutions for developing, maintaining, accessing,
delivering, and analyzing actionable, standards-based Appropriate
Use Criteria (AUC) for imaging, lab, and care pathways, and is
an exclusive distributor of national standards clinical decision
support imaging guidelines. ACR Select is the complete web service
version of American College of Radiology (ACR) Appropriateness
Criteria® (AC). The company partners with healthcare
provider organizations and national medical societies—including
American College of Radiology, American College of Cardiology
(ACC), and European Society of Radiology (ESR)—to structure content
and deliver it through physician-centric workflows. NDSC's clinical
solution set provides physicians access to the latest
evidence-based approaches to medicine, allows providers to develop
and deliver local care pathways and protocols, and lets healthcare
organizations continuously analyze the impact that AUC has on care
delivery without disrupting the doctor-patient relationship. For
more information, visit www.NationalDecisionSupport.com.
Nuance and the Nuance logo are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in
the United States and/or other
countries. All other company names or product names may be
the trademarks of their respective owners.
The statements in this press release relating to future
plans, events or services, are forward-looking statements which are
subject to specific risks and uncertainties. There are a
number of factors which could cause actual events or results to
differ materially from those indicated in such forward looking
statements, including fluctuations in demand for the Nuance
products, and the continued development of Nuance products.
The reader is warned not to rely on these forward-looking
statements without reservation, since these are simply reflections
of the current situation. Nuance disclaims any obligation to
update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments
occurring after the date of this document.
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SOURCE National Decision Support Company