Nuance Signs Agreement with Voice Perfect Systems

Nuance Signs Agreement with Voice Perfect Systems to Deliver Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions in Asia Pacific Region

SYDNEY, Australia, 13 December, 2006 – Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions, today announced a partnership with Voice Perfect Systems to provide its Dictaphone® Healthcare Solutions across the Asia Pacific region. Voice Perfect Systems is an Australian company specialising in the distribution of speech activated dictation software with offices throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Nuance's Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions – including PowerScribe® Workstation and Enterprise Workstation – provide comprehensive dictation and transcription solutions that enhance the way patient data is captured, processed and used helping healthcare organisations save money and improve patient care by improving the turn around time, accuracy and usability of medical documentation.

An estimated $15 billion is spent worldwide each year on manual healthcare transcription. With Nuance’s Dictaphone Healthcare solutions, which incorporate the market-leading Dragon™ NaturallySpeaking® speech recognition engine, hospitals can reduce documentation costs across the healthcare enterprise and within specialised departments such as radiology and pathology, while improving patient care through faster access to electronic patient information. Hospital transcription teams can use Nuance’s solutions to stimulate transcription productivity gains of 50 percent and more. Dictaphone’s physician-friendly documentation tools put healthcare professionals in control of their own reporting, saving time and money, while delivering a technology payback in one year or less.

“We have enhanced our existing relationship with Voice Perfect Systems to broaden the reach of our Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions across Asia Pacific, so hospitals and medical practices can transform the high cost of medical reporting to a low cost high-quality process. This will result in benefits such as increased physician productivity and better care, through easier, more immediate access to electronic patient information,” said Bob Anderson, Regional Director, Asia Pacific, Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions, Nuance.

“Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions are already used in the U.S. by more than 4,000 hospitals, clinics and group practices, and over 400,000 healthcare providers to simplify and enhance the production and management of electronic patient documentation. With Voice Perfect Systems’ support, we’re confident that we can quickly replicate this success across Asia Pacific,” Mr. Anderson said.

Steve Freeman, CEO, Voice Perfect Systems said, “Nuance’s Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions have broadened our portfolio of speech technology solutions. We can now offer customers in the healthcare industry a complete digital dictation solution in addition to the delivery of our Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional Solutions.

“Voice Perfect emphasises complete solutions including software integration, system customisation, support and training to ensure maximum return on investment for its customers. We expect digital dictation to be well received across Asia Pacific markets because it offers maximum transcription cost savings and enhanced documentation control, while helping healthcare organisations gain a significant competitive advantage through better service to patients and referring physicians.”

Proven with more than 900 customers worldwide, Dictaphone PowerScribe from Nuance saves health care organisations thousands of dollars per doctor each year in reduced or eliminated manual transcription costs within Radiology and Pathology departments. Through the combination of highly accurate speech recognition software and powerful physician self-editing tools, PowerScribe dramatically reduces report turnaround time in even the most demanding medical environments. Standard templates can easily be created for each user and driven completely by voice navigation and editing, further speeding report completion while reducing dictation reporting time.

Enterprise Workstation is an enterprise-wide web-based solution for integrated dictation and transcription workflow. With Enterprise Workstation, physicians can dictate, self-correct, and electronically sign reports generated by Nuance’s embedded Dragon speech recognition technology or send draft documents to medical transcriptionists for editing. As with PowerScribe, Enterprise Workstation enables healthcare professionals to use pre-defined templates which significantly speed up the process of creating medical reports.

This agreement adds to Nuance’s portfolio of existing partnerships with leading electronic medical records (EMR) vendors, systems integrators and medical transcription service organisations (MTSOs) and supports Nuance’s broader strategy to automate manual transcription in healthcare, an essential component of the industry’s drive toward cost reduction and clinical automation. In addition, the combination of Nuance and Voice Perfect Systems’ dedicated sales and service teams will allow the partnership to effectively serve the Asia Pacific healthcare market through an expansive portfolio of technologies and applications, and a deep set of services and capabilities.

Nuance’s Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions Division in Asia Pacific has experienced significant growth over the last six months with the number of installed users doubling during this period. The agreement with Voice Perfect Systems strengthens local support for customers – which include the Alfred Hospital in Victoria and Flinders Medical Centre in South Australia.

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Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions Division
Nuance’s Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions Division provides comprehensive dictation and transcription solutions and services that improve the way patient data is captured, processed and used changing the way people process and work with medical information. Through the integration of speech recognition and natural language processing within existing health information management workflow, Nuance’s Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions offerings help healthcare organisations save money and improve patient care by improving the turn around time, accuracy and usability of their medical documentation. For more information, please visit nuance.com/Dictaphone.

Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance (Nasdaq: NUAN) is the leading provider of speech and imaging 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 information and how they create, share and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance's proven applications and professional services. For more information, please visit http://australia.nuance.com.

Voice Perfect Systems
Australian owned Voice Perfect Systems is one of the pioneering distributors of speech activated dictation software. Voice Perfect is the authorised publisher and distributor of Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional Solution Series products throughout Australia and New Zealand, and has dedicated Speech Technology Centres in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Auckland and Wellington.

Voice Perfect supplies Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Voice Perfect Vocabulary Editions direct to individual end users, state and federal government departments, business, major corporate users and through strategic industry partners in Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, USA, UK and other global regions. For more information, please visit www.voiceperfect.com

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