Hi All,

I'm wondering if anyone is familiar with or has even heard of MModal Fluency Direct? Any info would be most appreciated.

Thanks,

Glenn

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Clinical software support professional

M*Modal is an EMR speech recognition company that thinks they can take on the Dragon. Without going into too much detail, M*Modal is equivalent to comparing Microsoft Word to WordPad. The M*Modal website brags about how much faster their speech recognition application is but guess what, NotePad is also faster than Microsoft Word. Faster doesn't mean more accurate and while DMPE 2 was somewhat sluggish, DMPE 2.2 should be fast enough (as in your dictation hit the page before you can exhale). We doubt M*Modal will be around long.

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MMODAL was in bankruptcy last year.

MDH

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Link to MModal bankruptcy information:

http://chapter11dallas.com/mmodal-bankruptcy/

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Hugh

Hey Lunis - before you throw stones, why do you take a look at the KLAS report and take a look at all the IDNs that are de-installing Dragon and installing Fluency Direct?

By the way, its always great to see someone with a finanical arrangement with Nuance bashing a better product.

            Welcome to the World's Most Popular Speech Recognition Forum

Jack,

We find it interesting that this is your 1st post. Is it possible that you have a financial interest in M*Modal?

We can appreciate the KLAS report but we believe it focuses on the wrong points. For example, not too long ago, many Dragon users opted for ViaVoice because it was notably faster than Dragon but in the end, Dragon was proven to be a superior product and IBM wound up selling out ViaVoice, to ScanSoft (previous Dragon owner) for a piddling stock swap.

Our understanding is that M*Modal is faster, simpler and cheaper but guess what; you could say the same thing when comparing WordPad to Microsoft Word. If you want quick down and dirty, WordPad makes sense but if you want the full Monty (the ability to embed hyperlinks, highlight, color etc.) you will need Microsoft Word. M*Modal advertises that it's faster but it can't advertise it is more accurate because it isn't. From what we can see, it appears that M*Modal is based on the equivalence of BestMatch III algorithms (single core) while current versions of Dragon are BestMatch V (parallel dual core processor). This accuracy difference is noticeable and when DMPE 3 is released, dictation should appear in your EMR before you can exhale. M*Modal will still be faster but not noticeably so. We love competition but we think this is an area where it might be too little too late. Nuance has had a lot of time to dominate the speech recognition market. At times, they have up to 100 developers working for them and they buy up patents and everything speech recognition related in sight. Dragon 13 (and eventually DMPE 3) also has lots of features that M*Modal cannot reproduce such as Far Field algorithms, the ability to batch transcribe recordings, Deferred Correction, open ended command technology and the list goes on. Nuance is the proverbial 800 pound gorilla that's holding all the cards. Additionally, M*Modal's Chapter 11 restructuring isn't likely to give potential investors/clients a warm fuzzy feeling.

The M*Modal headquarters is only 60 miles away from us but when we spoke with them last year, they had no interest in a possible partnership. While we currently make a profit as a Dragon reseller, our days are probably numbered. At some point, Dragon is likely to go the Microsoft Office cloud computing route so we are not married to Nuance. We wish M*Modal the best but it's going to be a hard uphill battle for anyone trying to compete with Nuance. Of course that's just our opinion…

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"the KLAS report...

Yeah, they also say how great Greenway is--it sucks the big hairy wazoo!

MDH

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Excellent! This is very useful feedback. Thanks, all

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Clinical software support professional

Jack,

We don't have to throw stones. MModal Fluency Direct does that with no help from any of us.

Chuck

"Man is the animal that intends to shoot himself out into interplanetary space, after having given up on the problem of an efficient way to get himself five miles to work and back each day." - Bill Vaughn

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VoiceComputer: the only global speech interface.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are my own and do not reflect those of VoiceTeach LLC.

Chuck Runquist
VoiceComputer technical support

Full Disclaimer: Long-time lurker, New Forum User, First Time Post and also Fluency Direct's Product Manager.

I just would like to catch everyone up to speed on where we are as a product and respond to a few of the comments posted earlier.

. We don't have a consumer product, legal product and we don't support voice recognition in cars. As a company, we are smaller than Nuance, but we focus solely on healthcare and we do medical speech recognition really well.
. We don't work through resellers like Knowbrainer, but we do have our own Sales Force.
. Like Nuance we do have an extensive patent portfolio. We have industry leading and first to market functionality. Nuance even had to copy our name with its latest Dragon Direct product to try to catch up. :-)
. Aside from our many reference customers, we do believe that KLAS is a good objective measure of how we are doing in the market in terms of feature set and customer support. I will let our rankings speak for themselves.
. I have worked at M*Modal for many years. We have strong sales of our product and we aren't going anywhere.

To be honest, I debated if I should weigh in on this thread since the forum is a resource to help support the sale of another product. I don't want to distract from that, but I felt I should correct some misunderstandings.

Thanks,
Tim

Tim,

Could you please address the MMODAL bankruptcy issues. Obviously, this impacts anyone's decision to tie their stars to your company's future. Also, I saw a demonstration of PrimeSpeech -- Greenway's speech program using MMODAL a few years ago, and it was primitive at best. Hopefully you have advanced since then.

MDH

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Hi Glenn,

I was able to reach out to our sales organization to see what happened to the lead and why a call wasn't returned. Based on the information I have available to me currently, we did initiate the call and left a message some time last week. We didn't get a return call to that message. I asked the sales rep to reach out again and they connected today. I believe we are talking about the same individual, but I am not 100% sure. We also had the opportunity to talk and demo to some people from your organization at HIMSS.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Thanks,
Tim

Hi,

As a non-lurker user of this forum I have to say that I think it's commendable that Lunis lets so many diverse folk post here.  Is not unusual to find folk nagging him as some sort of mysterious entrepreneur Wizard manipulating everything for some massive financial greater good to benefit himself.  He may be making a fortune or not I don't know :-).  But I do know that threads like this one are not deleted by some mysterious moderator.

I've just noticed a potential sales connection with a competitive merchant.  The sales contact sorted out and the lead source confirmed by the use of this forum.  Will the sales company be giving a commission to KnowBrainer?  Not that KnowBrainer appears to be looking for commissions :-).

The 1st post on this thread never did answer the question that Lunis posed.  Not that it matters.  This is an unusual forum in that it's a wonderful convoluted mix of technical, professional, personal and sometimes funny exchanges that leave some people with a solution and other people more frustrated and confused that when they started :-).  From reading the replies of the frustrated and confused it's mainly because they can't seem to follow clear simple instructions and are simply in a funk and somewhat panicked.

By the way, I would like to see a topic stream of the most amusing post of the day :-).  Some of us need a tad of like relief when struggling and staggering with the complexity of our computing machines, binary & bodily style systems.

Cheers for now
Dan

 

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The forum has me as a Top-Tier Member NO I am a laid-back layman

Rüdiger, I could have commented that if nuance was better in their responses timing than this particular company then what hope is there :-).  At least you get responses from Lunis, Lindsay and the various gang on the KnowBrainer forum.  Maybe we all like the sound of our own voices :-).  I know my wife tells me I do and she also accuses me of blowing my own trumpet while I'm at it.  But then we have been married since the 1960s so I guess she ought to know.

Cheers for now
Dan

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The forum has me as a Top-Tier Member NO I am a laid-back layman

Well, Dan, in trying to meet your most amusing post of the day criteria, it seems that your KnowBrain washing worked a treat!


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I greatly appreciate the variety of responses in this thread. Without competition, progress is poor. AMD and Intel were competitive for a few years and there was pretty good market movement. Then the competition faded and I haven't upgraded a CPU for three years because without competition Intel hasn't impressed me with its minor CPU improvements. I can imagine a future where M*Modal gets a clue and partners with KnowBrainer and other resellers. Then we'll see some interesting competition that will improve offerings from both Nuance and M*Modal. As far as future trends go, my hospital is not talking Nuance any more. They are talking about getting a bunch of M*Modal licenses. I was not involved in the decision.

C'mon, folks, funniest post (of this thread, at least) has to go to Jack Tors. [And thx, MDH for getting back on topic]

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jerky_Boys#Jack_Tors

"Jack Tors is among the Jerky Boys' most popular characters. He's extremely vain, and is always searching for ways to improve both his looks and his bizarre "act"- which consists of setting himself on fire, wrapping his friends in plastic, and beating a spider monkey... among other things. Owner of Jack's Pickles and Penis Pumps, where a small box of potatoes costs $2,000."

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PG

Remember folks, my comments and this forum are for entertainment value only, please, no wagering or other reliance on the contents herein.  I permit no commercial use of my ideas (whether expressions or embodiments) without my written consent.

"And thx, MDH for getting back on topic"

Actually, you probably were not aware that I was actually still on topic as Greenway offers PrimeSpeech, which uses MMODAL as it's speech engine. IMHO, both are less than optimal.

MDH

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It appears to be unfortunately necessary to disabuse some people of their flights of fancy and wild imaginings. Without getting into my business too much, suffice it to say that my interest in MModal in no way threatens Lunis' or Knowbrainer's interests. On the contrary, it is the case that I am a very valuable ally of Knowbrainer. I won't go into further detail so don't ask. But some commenters need to check their assumptions and be more polite.

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Clinical software support professional

Glenn,

I don't believe that anyone has said anything disparaging about your associations based on the information that you provided. Correct me if I am wrong.

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/glenn-davisson/60/5ba/a14

I might add, very impressive credentials.

MDH

 

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Right, MDH, I meant I was *appreciating* you for bringing this topic back around to the substance (your experiences re MMODAL/Greenway, and as well, re the asking for the company's view on what the bankruptcy filing means to users). Very helpful, indeed, and I hope we get an actual reply.

I was also glad how you addressed the little bit of off-topic back and forth and corrected the record, so to speak. For me, I just wanted to note, in a lighthearted way, that the JackTors post was a farce and hardly worthy of a real reply. Although, I guess bringing up the KLAS report was on topic, so maybe it had some value.

Thx for your many valuable contributions.

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PG

Remember folks, my comments and this forum are for entertainment value only, please, no wagering or other reliance on the contents herein.  I permit no commercial use of my ideas (whether expressions or embodiments) without my written consent.

I'm back.  After reading several of these responses.

Nuance Facts:

O 8 straight quarters of operating losses

O $2.3 Billion in Debt

O Activist investor controlling the future of the company

O Trying to copy M*Modal architecture – i.e. “Dragon Direct”

 

M*Modal Facts:

O Multi-year streak of operating profits

O Addressed debt through restructuring similar to GM, Delta Air Lines, and Kindred

O Widening lead on Dragon in latest KLAS report and beating Dragon head to head

 

The name-calling and bashing by several on this thread are embarrassing.

 

We are not defending Nuance but comparing the profits of a Fortune 500 company to a much smaller company borders on ridiculous. For example, our company has always made a profit so going with your theory, we are beating the pants off from both M*Modal and Nuance. It just doesn't work that way. We don't disagree that Nuance is too far in debt but their reasons for being in debt are somewhat understandable. They conduct massive worldwide advertising, patent every form of speech recognition related technology they come across and buy out most of their competitors. We just don't see how M*Modal can go too far when Nuance owns the lion's share of speech recognition related patents. We additionally doubt that M*Modal has more than 1 to 3 speech recognition programmers while Nuance hires up to 100 programmers.

While we can appreciate your embarrassment, from our perspective, it's M*Modal that appears to be underwhelming. To reiterate, just because a speech recognition application is faster doesn't make it better. NotePad is faster than Microsoft Word but there's no comparison between the 2 products. M*Modal appears to be using the equivalence of BestMatch III algorithms utilizing a single core processor. DMPE 2.2 utilizes BestMatch V parallel dual core processing algorithms. We are not certain what you know about BestMatch algorithms but essentially, in BestMatch III, when you dictate 5 words, the middle word is compared to the 1st 2 and last 2 words for proper phrasing. By comparison, Dragon BestMatch V performs the same function with 9 words. Simply put, when dictating 9 words, M*Modal CAN'T be as accurate as Dragon because the math isn't there. When DMPE 3 is released, it will include additional features that M*Modal can probably only dream of like Far Field algorithms (we suspect M*Modal development doesn't know what that means), fast BestMatch V, over 100 unique setting options designed for the medical profession, full text control support (because any EMR that wants to stay in business knows that it has to work with Dragon) and the new open ended command technology which we also doubt the M*Modal engineers have any understanding of.

M*Modal talks a lot about accuracy and speed but these are only 2 elements in the speech recognition equation. For example, M*Modal has powerful medical vocabularies but doesn't have much in the form of a Vocabulary Editor or Vocabulary Builder which is where Dragon's strength is. Any time you read a review of M*Modal vs. DMPE, you are viewing something from #1 typically unqualified testers (at best, end-users who only know how to Dictate) and #2 out-of-the-box accuracy and #3, in all likelihood, M*Modal was compared to DMPE 2.0 rather than 2.2 which is significantly faster. While there is some value in this process, the point we would like to stress is that M*Modal only has a marginal ability to improve its accuracy, through correcting, while DMPE includes numerous utilities that can significantly improve accuracy and efficiency.

For example: The Dragon Vocabulary Editor includes 4 different ways to personalize words and phrases. Within a fairly short period of time, DMPE has the ability to significantly increase its accuracy. DMPE also includes a sophisticated Command Browser which allows the end-user to automate their workflow via 4 different types of macros. It really boils down to is what your time is worth. From our perspective, you can pay $1000 for M*Modal and finish your work by 5 PM or you can spend $1600 on DMPE and get out of work by perhaps as early as 3:00 PM; to get in a round of golf  Rather than comparing speech recognition applications by out-of-the-box accuracy and speed, we recommend comparing them in the real world by how fast you can get the job done. In the end, that's all it matters.

 

PS: Over the years, we have read numerous “so-called” professional Dragon reviews. In most, if not all cases, the reviewers knew almost nothing about the inner workings of Dragon. Even the Dragon reviewers who were using Dragon every day, typically got half of their information wrong because they were only using Dragon for dictation. They quite literally had no inclination of most of the available commands, how to verbally edit a phrase, how to use the Vocabulary Editor, how to use the Vocabulary Builder or how to use the Command Browser. About 2 months after we released the 1st NaturallySpeaking 13 Review, which is 18 pages, another reviewer publicized their 1.5 page work of art. Literally 90% of their review was completely wrong. After we contacted them privately, they withdrew their review. Unfortunately, most speech recognition reviewers are simply underqualified and don't understand the technology.

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Thank you for your thoughtful reply.  

I appreciate the historical advantage that Dragon had – Fluency Direct went GA in 2012 – Dragon since around 2000. 

Users have a choice now, which is a good thing – this competition keeps prices reasonable and both companies working to develop a better product. 

My opinion, you are underestimating the capability of the M*Modal architecture and speech engine quality.  Additionally, if you knew of the current install base in terms of Top 100 IDNs and Academic Medical Centers, I believe that would change your perspective

Just as Tim has in a very honest and professional manner declared his MMODAL associations in a very forthright, and full disclosure atmosphere (without being asked) manner, I think it would be nice to know your (JackTors) association. I have none with either company, or for that matter, with any speech recognition company.

Additionally, would still be interested in Tim's responses to my previous questions regarding MMODAL bankruptcy concerns.

MDH

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Thx, "Jack" and Lunis -- this is far more illuminating than the prior mere casting of aspersions. For sure, more competition will help everyone. I am already unbelievably impressed with Google's recognition in not only the typing (hitting the mic on the keyboard gives surprisingly accurate results -- *much* better than Siri or MS's) but particularly in how Google Voice has been transcribing voice messages for years with any arbitrary poorly articulating speaker (so one imagines similar results transcribing from multiple voices in a conference or lecture). Star Trek technology is just around the corner. I sure do hope MModal forces Nuance to reply by making better technology (rather than Nuance replying by buying them out, or inhibiting their progress with a patent thicket, or any other anti-consumer choice response Nuance has shown itself capable of).


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PG

Remember folks, my comments and this forum are for entertainment value only, please, no wagering or other reliance on the contents herein.  I permit no commercial use of my ideas (whether expressions or embodiments) without my written consent.

Glenn,

Saw demos of MMODAL and Dragon Medical 360/Direct this week at our hospital. MMODAL was clearly alot faster in terms of transcribing, but this may have been in part dictator dependent, as the Nuance person read fron a script quickly without pause. Only when he paused about 3 sentences in, did it transcribe all of his text immediately. Of course, this is normal, expected behavior, and he would have been better for demo purposes to have read with pauses in between sentences.

MMODAL was also more robust in terms of lots and lots of reminders about  incomplete elements of the dictations for reporting and billing purposes, as far as fullfilling ICD-10 requirements. However, my take is that the hospital and billing will love this, but physicians will find that this is a nuisance requiring amending documents. My sense is that Dragon Medical 360/Direct was more patient care oriented while MMODAL was emphasis was more assuring all of the criteria for completeness of note were present.

When I saw the MMODAL demonstrator did a note, I then asked where the physical exam part of the note was, as it was noticeably absent. The response was that they could "customize" for our hospital to include that! I was amazed that the exam was not considered a basic integral part of a patient vist note.

But above and beyond all else is that is that MMODAL just came out of bankruptcy last year and has a heavy debt structure. They need to repay loans of $770,000,000 over the next 5 years.

· US$250 million 10.75% senior unsecured bridge facility notes due Aug. 15, 2020

· US$75 million revolver bank loan due Aug. 17, 2017

· US$445 million term bank loan due Aug. 17, 2019

I would not want to tie my star to a company with those financials, regardless of their most recent profitable quarters.

MDH

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Thank you, MDH, for this report. We wound up canceling our demo because needs changed. So I have yet to see it myself. Your description helps my understanding a significant amount.

Cheers,

Glenn

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Clinical software support professional

I used Dragon for several years but when I changed employers I found myself moved into Fluency Direct.  I am a physician and use it extensively in an EMR and I am very happy with it but I'm held back compared to Dragon.  I find the accuracy is outstanding as was the Dragon.  I find Fluency Direct is more limited in capability though than Dragon.  I think a comparison phrase I saw in another post fits best.....its like using WordPad instead of Word.  If thats all you need its perfect, but if you want to go to the next step in programming and automation FD isnt it. As I watch the other physicians using it I see that they are very happy with the tool and wouldnt use the additional features offered by Dragon if it were available. So it was probably a good business decision by the employer.

 

 

Stephen,

MMODAL is just putting the finishing touches on a tool facilitating import of Advanced Scripting commands in Dragon to be imported into MMODAL.

MDH

 

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