Nuance Communications acquired Saykara, a startup building a medical AI voice assistant to help with charting and other administrative tasks. The deal is expected to build on Nuance's speech recognition tools for physicians.
Saykara, which built an AI voice assistant for medical professionals, had to quickly adjust when most healthcare appointments shifted to online. The company integrated its services with Zoom and began helping health systems with scheduling tasks.
As technology advances, AI-powered tools will increasingly reduce the administrative burdens on healthcare providers.
Seattle-based Saykara claims its voice-based physician assistant can now fully automate some patient interactions, meaning no scribe is required in the back end to confirm the system’s results. The system can also automatically fill out the correct fields in the EHR, requiring no clicks.
Recently the company unveiled an ambient mode that is able to listen to contextual clues and record important clinical notes without the use of a "wake word" to engage the technology.