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Sixty percent of the clinical data included in the 1.2 billion clinical documents produced in the United States each year, is comprised of dictated and transcribed documents -- essentially, the narrative that tells the patient's story. This narrative is the information that forms the basis for reimbursement, proof of service, and quality of care between healthcare providers. It serves as the foundation for why physicians initiate orders and make decisions about patient care. Despite these attributes, many industry professionals say the information is "shockingly" underutilized in electronic medical records (EMRs) and other computer-based record systems.

The Health Story Project's testimony was provided on behalf of all parties whose input is critical to making the meaningful use of the certified EHR a success. These include physicians (the overwhelming majority who continue to use dictation); medical records and document management, coding, dictation, speech understanding, natural language processing and EHR vendors; transcription/coding service providers (over 200,000 U.S.-based knowledge workers); and patients who want and deserve access to their complete record, including physician narrative and structured data entry.

While the industry is beginning to recognize the need for the structured narrative, M*Modal has made this possible since 2001 with its advanced Speech Understanding technology. All of M*Modal's speech understanding/transcription solution content is produced in a format that complies with Health Story Project-sponsored data standards. The company's solutions generate "meaningful clinical documents" that handle structured data and natural language narratives with ease.

According to Michael Finke, CEO, M*Modal, "Clinical documentation is structured to support effective sharing between the narrative in documents and the database centric electronic health record. Our conversational documen
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