Precyse Debuts Catalyst for Advanced Front-End Speech Recognition

Precyse Solutions, a provider of advanced transcription software platform, has launched Catalyst, a front-end automated speech recognition product.

Catalyst enables health providers to capture entire patient stories via common speech, and saves it as discrete data to the electronic health record, driving EHR adoption and compliance with HITECH Act provisions.

Under development for 18 months, Catalyst enters the market at a time when provider organizations are grappling with how to make best use of new healthcare information technologies, as well as comply with meaningful use mandates and interoperability benchmarks, the company said.

"While providers fully recognize the value of [the HITECH Act], many have been confronted with one particularly significant hurdle," said Kenneth Lacy, CIO of Precyse. "Most caregivers balk at making changes to familiar work habits. Documenting patient visits in the EHR, unfortunately, often requires major adaptations."

Lacy said that these barriers are removed with speech-based options preserving free-form narrative, which can then be transformed into discrete data for integration with the medical record. Today, caregiver dictation often is captured verbally and transcribed using ASR at the back end of the process, where transcriptionists edit the document. The company said that Catalyst, on the other hand, offers front-end ASR, which quickly learns providers' patterns, personalities, and preferences, and then allows them to review and finalize their own dictation.

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