Success story—Dragon Medical One optimizes clinician experience and reduces burnout

Investing in physicians

Learn about Boston Medical’s journey to offering their physicians a technological advantage over other facilities. See how Dragon Medical One’s high‑quality speech recognition performance boosts physician documentation efficiency, wellbeing, and morale.

Background

Boston Medical Center (BMC), a non‑profit academic medical center in Boston, is the largest safety‑net hospital and Level I trauma center in New England. They recruit and retain the best and brightest physicians for every medical specialty to serve their mission of providing exceptional care, without exception.

Creating a competitive advantage for physician retention

“Boston is a competitive market,” says Rebecca Mishuris, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer at BMC. “Healthcare providers could choose to work at other facilities, but the BMC mission is a big draw. That said, it’s important to give our providers the same level of support they might find somewhere else. A key driver is the clinician experience with technology and what that means for their clinical work and job satisfaction.”

Dragon Medical One selected after head‑to‑head pilot program

To improve provider burnout and satisfaction, BMC looked at speech recognition to augment the usability of their Epic EHR and other IT solutions. The team launched a head‑to‑head comparison of Nuance’s Dragon Medical One with another solution, selecting a small group of physicians with a range of speech recognition experience. “We wanted to determine which platform was most user‑friendly,” says Jeff Kalish, MD, Associate CMIO at BMC. 

Dragon Medical One’s technical and quality performance prevailed. “Because Dragon tightly integrates with Epic, it knocked a lot of other solutions out of the running right away,” says Dr. Mishuris. “Plus, other solutions couldn’t handle background noise, medical terminology, or providers’ accents. Across the board, everyone was impressed with the quality of the voice recognition.”

Initial positive feedback prompted an expansion of the pilot with Dragon Medical One as the vendor of choice, just as the COVID‑19 pandemic intensified. “We took advantage of Nuance’s kindness offer of additional licenses and catapulted forward,” Dr. Kalish says. “Their generosity allowed us to extend use to a broader base of people—all levels of providers, different departments—and collect their feedback.”

Following the pilot programs, BMC surveyed their physicians to measure satisfaction with Dragon Medical One. In addition to rating their overall satisfaction, accuracy, and efficiency as “extremely satisfactory,” an overwhelming majority of providers anecdotally reported shaving minutes off the time they spent documenting. Clinicians who had been typing or using templates could quickly navigate the Epic EHR and dictate. User surveys made a convincing argument to hospital leadership and proved the solution would be a valuable investment. Beyond reducing transcription costs, Dragon saves time and boosts morale—important factors in provider retention and recruitment.

“It’s so intuitive to use,” Dr. Kalish concludes. “With Dragon Medical One, providers can work more efficiently and complete their documentation sooner. That’s what matters.”