Nuance Communications Inc. (NSDQ:NUAN) signed a deal with the nonprofit Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement for the company’s decision support system.
The Burlington, Mass.-based speech and imaging software provider said ICSI, whose members include 60 medical groups and six sponsoring health plans in Minnesota and surrounding states, licensed its RadPort system to support an initiative to "ensure Minnesotans only receive medically appropriate high-tech diagnostic imaging tests," which include MRIs, CT and PET scans, and nuclear cardiology.
The Food & Drug Administration only yesterday said that recent reports of overexposure to radiation during CT scans that it has been investigating were likely due to human error, not malfunction.
The federal watchdog agency also issued recommendations for CT scan equipment makers aimed at reducing the risk of overexposure. The scanners could be made safer if their manufacturers provided more training to end users and the devices included radiation gauges and alarms indicating possible overexposure.
Nuance Communications said the ICSI initiative is the first of its kind in the country and projects it to save the Minnesota healthcare community more than $28 million per year.
Nuance Communications is known for its Dragon Naturally Speaking speech-recognition software.