L&H's Dictaphone HSG Continues to be Healthcare Providers' Leading Choice for Patient Reporting Solutions.

Business/Technology Editors and Health/Medical Writers

HIMSS 2001 Conference

NEW ORLEANS--(BW HealthWire)--Feb. 5, 2001

Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions Group Announces Major Customer

Contracts Across its Product Line

Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions Group (Dictaphone HSG), a division of Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. (EASDAQ:LHSP, OTC:LHSPQ) (`L&H' or `the Company'), a world leader in speech and language technology, products and services today announced that several prominent healthcare organizations have signed significant contracts over the past three months. These contracts demonstrate the continued success of Dictaphone HSG's Enterprise Express(R) dictation, transcription and report management platform, and indicate steady progress in penetrating the large and growing clinic and group practice markets, in addition to the hospital segment. The new contracts also further endorse this speech recognition and text-processing platform as a viable and cost effective solution for report generation in radiology and other medical specialties.

Expanding Dictaphone HSG's installed base in hospitals with Enterprise Express(R) technology

Building on its success in 1,500 hospitals to date, Dictaphone HSG secured significant commitments during the last three months for its Enterprise Express(R) voice and text processing platform solution from a number of well-known and respected hospitals, including Lahey Hitchcock Medical Center (MA); Baptist Healthcare System (KY); Mt. Clemens General Hospital (MI); Long Beach Memorial (CA); Nyack Hospital (NY); and Blue Hill Memorial (ME).

Of these commitments, 37 orders included the Enterprise Express(R) TextSystem software, a companion transcription and document management software complement to Dictaphone HSG's core VoiceSystem software. Dictaphone HSG believes that its success with the TextSystem software demonstrates the healthcare market's need for an integrated voice and text processing solution with rich features and a system platform that can be expanded to incorporate evolving document processing technologies such as speech recognition.

Dictaphone HSG also makes progress in penetrating outpatient markets

Dictaphone HSG also announced contracts over the last three months with a number of clinics and specialty physician groups, which offer outpatient services. Selected account wins include Columbus Urology (OH); Florida Eye Associates (FL); Hand Surgical Associates (LA); South Jersey Radiology; Raleigh Orthopedic Clinic (NC); Genesis Physician Group (IN); and Indiana Heart Physicians (IN).

Rob Schwager, President of L&H's Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions Group said: "These contracts demonstrate real progress in realizing L&H's goal of significantly expanding Dictaphone HSG's leadership position and share in the clinic and group practice markets. The rapid acceptance of our patient reporting system solutions within these segments is testimony to the effectiveness of our system platforms' scalability, and our ability to tailor technology that has been proven in the demanding hospital environment to the unique needs of the outpatient markets."

To penetrate these markets, Dictaphone HSG has introduced the smaller Enterprise 125 and Enterprise 50 versions of the larger Enterprise Express(R) systems, along with various solutions packages to meet the specific needs of smaller healthcare organizations. Further, over the past two years, the company has assembled a specialized sales force to serve the outpatient markets.

Dictaphone HSG also recently launched its ichart(TM) solution suite, an ASP (application service provider) offering of Internet-based dictation, transcription, and related services. The ichart(TM) solution is designed to appeal to groups and clinics that have not traditionally been able to invest in onsite systems.

Radiologists continue to embrace Dictaphone HSG's speech recognition technology solutions

Dictaphone HSG's PowerScribe(R) for Radiology system, the market-leading, integrated speech recognition and transcription management system, has proven that speech recognition technology can generate real productivity improvements and cost savings in healthcare patient reporting while ensuring a rapid return on investment for HSG customers. The company noted that sales of its speech recognition systems in the radiology market exceeded $1 million per month on average throughout 2000, including a record quarter in 3Q00 for PowerScribe(R) system. Recently joining HSG's impressive roster of more than 100 PowerScribe(R) clients are Intermountain Health Care, Inc. (Salt Lake City, UT); Spring Branch Medical Center (Houston, TX); Lancaster General Hospital (Lancaster, PA); and Northeast Health (Albany, NY). The company noted that two recent contracts with the University of Virginia Health System (Charlottesville, VA) and Doshi Diagnostic Imaging Services, PC (Hicksville, NY), represent the largest planned deployments to date of PowerScribe(R) system in an academic hospital and private diagnostic imaging center, respectively.

About Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions Group

Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions Group (HSG) combines Dictaphone's healthcare technologies with the speech recognition and text processing technologies of L&H and Dragon Systems. The group has a strong base of dictation, transcription, and report management systems solutions currently being deployed in some of the nation's premier healthcare organizations. Its full range of solutions automates and integrates several critical reporting and processing elements in the creation and management of health information, helping healthcare organizations and clinicians improve productivity and the quality of patient care. In addition to the flagship Enterprise Express(R) platform, L&H PowerScribe(R) for Radiology is an integrated dictation and transcription system designed for radiologists in hospitals and group practices looking to reduce the costs and turnaround time associated with their dictated patient reports. Dictaphone HSG has also introduced the ichart(TM) family of Internet-based solutions that integrate existing products and technologies with new coding, natural language and data mining technologies, significantly reducing the costs of managing patient information. Dictaphone HSG digital dictation solutions are an integral part of the creation and flow of patient information in over half of all U.S. hospitals, currently supporting several hundred-thousand physicians who use the group's systems to generate an estimated one million reports and 100,000 hours of dictation a day.

About Lernout & Hauspie

Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. ("L&H" or the "Company") is a global leader in advanced speech and language solutions for vertical markets, computers, automobiles, telecommunications, embedded products, consumer goods and the Internet. The company is making the speech user interface (SUI) the keystone of simple, convenient interaction between humans and technology, and is using advanced translation technology to break down language barriers. The company provides a wide range of offerings, including: customized solutions for corporations; core speech technologies marketed to OEMs; end user and retail applications for continuous speech products in horizontal and vertical markets; and document creation, human and machine translation services, Internet translation offerings, and linguistic tools.

L&H's products and services originate in four basic areas: automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), digital speech and music compression (SMC) and text-to-text (translation). For more information, please visit Lernout & Hauspie on the World Wide Web at www.lhsl.com.

For product information please visit Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions Group at: www.dictaphone.com, or call: 888-350-4863.

This Press Release contains forward looking information that involves risks and uncertainties, including statements about the Company's plans, objectives, expectations and intentions. Readers are cautioned that forward looking statements include known and unknown risks, including the uncertainties associated with the Company's recent chapter 11 filings in the United States and similar proceedings in Belgium, uncertainty of new product development, the risk that newly introduced products may contain undetected errors or defects or otherwise not perform as anticipated, the early state of development of the speech, language and medical information technology markets, the ability of L&H's customers to successfully integrate and commercialize L&H's technology, the retention of key technological and other personnel, currency and other risks related to international operations, rapid technological change and intense competition, as well as other risks set forth in L&H's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this Press Release.

L&H, Dictaphone, PowerScribe, ichart and Enterprise Express are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. and its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other product names or trademarks referenced herein are trademarks of their respective owners.