August 24, 2020 — Nuance Communications, Inc. and Mitre announced a strategic collaboration to advance the mCODE (minimal Common Oncology Data Elements) data standard for improved cancer research and treatment using the AI-powered Nuance Dragon Medical One solution. Clinicians can now populate vital cancer data directly into electronic health records (EHRs) using their voice, which will improve the quality of documentation and reduce data entry burden for oncologists. Improved cancer patient data is critical to support analytics that can identify safer care, lead to improved outcomes, and lower costs.
The Nuance-Mitre strategic collaboration brings together data elements and technology solutions, including:
- mCODE – A core set of structured data elements for oncology that establishes minimum recommended standards for the structure and content of health record information across use cases and users. The goal of mCODE is to improve the overall quality and consistency of cancer data available to clinicians, patients, researchers, and other stakeholders in the fight against cancer.
- Nuance Dragon Medical One – Trusted by thousands of healthcare organizations and over 550,000 clinicians to improve documentation and reduce administrative tasks, the cloud-based speech recognition platform uses voice commands to quickly collect and access oncology data, seamlessly integrates into existing workflows, and will be configured to incorporate mCODE data elements. Nuance Dragon Medical One is HITRUST CSF-certified and provides a consistent and personalized clinical documentation experience that spans solutions, platforms, devices, and physical locations.
"Every interaction between a clinician and a cancer patient provides high-quality data that could lead to safer care, improved outcomes, and lower costs," said Jay Schnitzer, M.D., Mitre's chief medical and technology officer. "But first, we need data that is standardized and collected in a computable manner so it can be aggregated with data from many other patients and analyzed for best practices. And it must be collected in a streamlined way that doesn't burden the clinicians. The Nuance offering will enhance this effort."
Diana Nole, Nuance Communications, executive vice president and general manager of healthcare, said, "Collecting clinical data specific to oncology treatment has traditionally been a difficult task to overcome. Combining Nuance's AI expertise with the mCODE data standard provides oncologists with the ability to easily collect and gain access to critical outcome data by simply using their voice to securely dictate notes and search within the EHR using Nuance Dragon Medical One. This will garner significant advancements in data collection, which will, in turn, dramatically improve patient treatment and care."
Recognizing that achieving interoperability in healthcare data is a difficult problem to solve without consensus across stakeholder groups, the mCODE initiative has worked since its inception to engage with health care thought leaders and health care alliances, medical associations, standards organizations, providers, and vendor consortia.
mCODE is currently utilized in real-world settings across the country, including in the Integrating Clinical Trials and Real-World Endpoints data (ICAREdata®) project, a pilot for the use of mCODE in oncology clinical trials seeking to close the gap between EHR data and research, managed by the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology.
For more information: www.nuance.com
September 29, 2026 
