Vocalis To Create Speech-Based Access Systems For US Medical Database Specialist

Vocalis Inc, the US subsidiary of the international speech technology group, has formed an important new partnership with Zebec Data Systems of Houston, a leading data warehousing company in the US healthcare industry. This agreement involves Vocalis developing dedicated front-end, interactive voice response (IVR) applications using its SpeecHTML system. Zebec will then interface these packages to health and medical databases. Under the contract, which runs for three years, Zebec will have the exclusive rights to supply such SpeecHTML-based systems to the health and managed care markets throughout the US.

Developed by Vocalis, SpeecHTML is now a well-established product being used by many companies. SpeecHTML enables Website owners to offer telephone access to their sites thus widening the audience. It also allows users to access and obtain information from Websites using only a telephone and with the ease of spoken commands.

SpeecHTML is based on two core technologies: advanced speech recognition (ASR), in which Vocalis is a world leader, and text to speech (TTS) conversion. This combination allows users to interrogate a Website to obtain information and then to have textual responses delivered to them over the telephone. The result is a fully interactive, wholly voice-based way of accessing the content of any SpeecHTML-enabled Website.

"SpeecHTML has transformed access to the Internet by providing infrastructure for voice portals. Telephony services are provided using existing web pages that are easy to update while callers are not even aware that the information provided is from a Website," said Mike Williams, President of Vocalis Inc. "We are delighted to have formed this partnership with Zebec, and Vocalis is now actively looking to form similar partnerships in other niche markets, where speech-based access to Web content can be particularly valuable."

"We see our agreement with Vocalis as an important development for Zebec, because in the health and managed care markets there are many potential applications for automated, IVR-driven front ends to databases," said John Feltham, President of Zebec. "A tool like SpeecHTML can make it much easier for both patients and doctors to obtain the medical information they need, at any time and wherever they are."

Two examples of how SpeecHTML IVR systems could help make medical databases easier to access are for diabetes sufferers, who may need to check their records on a regular basis, and for healthcare card systems, enabling doctors to find out costs, insurance coverage, and other details.