Nuance Partners with MITRE on Oncology Solution

Nuance Communications and MITRE today announced a strategic collaboration to advance the mCODE (minimal Common Oncology Data Elements) data standard for improved cancer research and treatment using Nuance's Dragon Medical One solution.

Clinicians can now populate cancer data directly into electronic health records (EHRs) using their voices.

The Nuance-MITRE strategic collaboration brings together data elements and technology solutions, including the following:

• mCODE – A core set of structured data elements for oncology that establishes minimum recommended standards for the structure and content of health record information across use cases and users. The goal of mCODE is to improve the overall quality and consistency of cancer data available to clinicians, patients, researchers, and other stakeholders in the fight against cancer.
• Nuance Dragon Medical One, the cloud-based speech recognition platform that uses voice commands to collect and access data, will be integrated into existing workflows and configured to incorporate mCODE data elements.

"Every interaction between a clinician and a cancer patient provides high-quality data that could lead to safer care, improved outcomes, and lower costs," said Dr. Jay Schnitzer, MITRE's chief medical and technology officer, in a statement. "But first, we need data that is standardized and collected in a computable manner so it can be aggregated with data from many other patients and analyzed for best practices. And it must be collected in a streamlined way that doesn't burden the clinicians. The Nuance offering will enhance this effort."

"Collecting clinical data specific to oncology treatment has traditionally been a difficult task to overcome," Diana Nole, an executive vice president and general manager of healthcare at Nuance, said in a statement. "Combining Nuance's AI expertise with the mCODE data standard provides oncologists with the ability to easily collect and gain access to critical outcome data by simply using their voices to securely dictate notes and search within the EHR using Nuance Dragon Medical One. This will garner significant advancements in data collection, which will, in turn, dramatically improve patient treatment and care."