Dictaphone Expands ichart Speech-Certified Transcription Network; Responds to Increasing Demand with Certification Program and Call for Additional Transcription Partners.

HONOLULU -- Today at the American Association for Medical Transcription (AAMT) Annual Convention and Expo, Dictaphone announced the creation of the healthcare industry's first Speech-Certified Transcription Network in response to the substantial growing demand for its ichart(R) Managed Services solutions. ichart Managed Services combines Dictaphone's industry-leading speech recognition technology with transcription services performed by Dictaphone's Speech-Certified Transcription Network, which has been trained to edit on the company's speech recognition platform. This combination of labor and technology delivers lower-cost, high-quality medical transcription with rapid turnaround. All Dictaphone transcription service partners are required to pass its rigorous certification program to ensure even higher levels of service excellence and proficiency in speech recognition editing.

"ichart Managed Services is quickly proving what we suspected when we introduced the product less then one year ago: that using speech recognition to drive down the enormous costs and improve the quality of transcription is the future of medical documentation outsourcing," said Don Fallati, senior vice president of marketing for Dictaphone. "The overwhelming response we've had from the market is driving us to create the first Speech-Certified Transcription Network, offering our clients the most talented and best-equipped group of 'speech recognition-enabled' transcription service providers."

Speech-Certified Transcription Providers are thoroughly trained, evaluated and benchmarked against specific industry-standard quality, speed and customer service metrics. Those that meet the strict criteria will receive certification and will be reevaluated quarterly to ensure continued adherence.

Tamara Brown, president and CEO of Encompass Medical Transcription, Inc., a member of Dictaphone's Speech-Certified Transcription Network, said, "ichart has allowed us to increase the volume of work Encompass can do with our existing staff and enabled us to train new medical transcriptionists to generate high-quality reports at a higher level of productivity." Headquartered in Wisconsin, Encompass is a U.S. medical transcription company that employs only U.S.-based medical transcriptionists.

"We welcome and encourage other medical transcription companies to join the Speech-Certified Transcription Network," Fallati said. "The interest we've seen from potential partners wanting to participate in the program has been significant and reflects the broad momentum in our industry for acquiring the skills associated with speech recognition."

About Dictaphone's ichart Managed Services

Dictaphone's ichart Managed Services offering aims to meet the needs of organizations currently relying heavily on outsourced transcription but who are attracted to the savings that can be generated by speech recognition. The program blends Dictaphone technology with transcription services performed by Dictaphone's Speech Certified Transcription Network who have been trained to edit on the company's speech recognition platform. Customers receive a blended line rate covering work that is transcribed traditionally as well as documents edited from speech recognition. Frequently, significant savings can be achieved by healthcare organizations over current line charges.

About Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions Group

Dictaphone is the world's largest supplier of dictation, transcription and speech recognition systems and services that simplify and enhance the production and management of paperless electronic patient information. Through the integration of speech recognition and natural language processing within existing health information management workflow, Dictaphone systems are helping healthcare organizations save money and improve patient care by increasing the speed, accuracy and usability of their medical documentation. For more information, please visit www.dictaphone.com or call 1-888-350-4836.