‘Wired into the walls’: Voice-recognition system promises to automate data entry during office visits

Hands down, the one task doctors complain about most is filling out the electronic health record during and after patient visits. It is disruptive and time-consuming, and patients don’t like being talked to over the doctor’s shoulder.

Now, amid an intensifying race to develop voice technologies for health care, a Boston-based company is preparing to release one of the first products designed to fully automate this process, by embedding artificially intelligent software into exam rooms.

Nuance, a maker of speech recognition software, is testing an ambient listening system that, without need for mouse and keyboard, can transcribe a conversation between a doctor and patient and upload key portions of it into a medical record. Executives said they hope to begin selling it