Greenway Integrates Speech Recognition, Digital Imaging Into EHR App

Greenway Medical Technologies has added PrimeSpeech verbal recognition and PrimeImage digital imaging capabilities to its PrimeSuite 2011 EHR (electronic health record) software. 

The company acquired the VisualMed imaging conversion and communications firm to complete integration of PrimeImage digital imaging technology. 

PrimeImage is an integrated picture archiving and communications system that allows physicians to manage digital images and integrate them into an EHR.

Imaging types include ultrasound, endoscopy, MRIs and CAT scans. Physicians can also store drawings and annotations in addition to text, voice notes and e-mail.

"Integrating diagnostic-quality imaging into physician practice workflows has long been a costly and cumbersome process," said Tee Green, Greenway's president and CEO, in a statement. "With PrimeImage, Greenway's PrimeSuite customers are now able to quickly store, integrate and access all images and reports related to a single study—directly from their PC, laptop or tablet."

PrimeImage could eliminate the need to print numerous ultrasound images and staple them to plain paper, Dr. Laura Shower, of PrimaryPlus, a medical facility in Vanceburg, Ky., explained in a statement.

"Now we use our templates to select four to eight images for exportation, which become part of the patient record in PrimeSuite," Shower said.  

Greenway also recently added an allergy module to the EHR application.  

PrimeSpeech converts dictated text into XML content in patient charts. In the past, transcribed text would be scanned into patient records as an unstructured block.

Using PrimeSpeech, physicians can dictate medical reports into clinical templates, create searchable and structured text, and access a built-in medical dictionary, spell-checker and speech correction tool.

Physicians can store the patient's EHR in a central database within PrimeSuite and easily update the records, the company reports.

"We've allowed them another modality to document patient care," Justin Barnes, Greenway's vice president of marketing, corporate development and government affairs, told eWEEK. 

Physicians can speak into a slate, convertible tablet or PC and add discrete spoken text to a document record, he explained.

PrimeSpeech will eliminate the need for costly transcription and make the patient's data more usable, according to Green. "PrimeSpeech takes speech input and document control to a whole new level of usability," Green said in a statement. "With PrimeSpeech, the spoken word is now transformed into meaningful content populated within our PrimeSuite EHR."

IBM and Nuance Communications, maker of the Dragon speech software, are also integrating speech recognition into the structured fields of EHRs.

"At the end of the day, the holy grail of health care is usability," Barnes said. "You want to ensure that you're building the best electronic health record that's highly functional and usable at the point of care."

The PrimeSuite EHR was certified on Oct. 14 by CCHIT (the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology). CCHIT is a nonprofit organization authorized by the Department of Health and Human Services to approve health care technology.