Microsoft Adds Voice and AI Capabilities to Healthcare Products
Microsoft has launched several Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare innovations that connect care experiences, enhance team collaboration, empower healthcare workers, and unlock clinical and operational insights. This includes new healthcare AI models in Azure AI Studio, capabilities for healthcare data solutions in Microsoft Fabric, the healthcare agent service in Copilot Studio, and an AI-driven nursing workflow solution.
"We are at an inflection point where AI breakthroughs are fundamentally changing the way we work and live," said Joe Petro, corporate vice president of healthcare and life sciences solutions and platforms at Microsoft, in a statement. "Across the broader healthcare and life sciences industry, these advancements are dramatically enhancing patient care and also rekindling the joy of practicing medicine for clinicians. Microsoft's AI-powered solutions are helping lead these efforts by streamlining workflows, improving data integration, and utilizing AI to deliver better outcomes for healthcare professionals, researchers and scientists, payors, providers, medtech developers, and ultimately the patients they all serve."
Microsoft's new healthcare AI models are a collection of multimodal medical imaging foundation models available in the Azure AI model catalog to integrate and analyze diverse data types, ranging from medical imaging to genomics and clinical records.
New voice capabilities in public preview within healthcare data solutions in Microsoft Fabric include conversational data integration, allowing users to send conversational data, such as patient conversations, from Nuance Communications' DAX Copilot to the Fabric platform. By sending DAX Copilot audio files, transcripts, and draft clinical notes to Fabric, users can leverage native tools in Azure and Fabric to analyze this data and/or combine it with other data to generate comprehensive insights.
Microsoft is also previewinghealthcare agent service in Copilot Studio to build Copilot agents for appointment scheduling, clinical trial matching, patient triaging, and more. Organizations can leverage the healthcare agent service to help create connected patient experiences, improve clinical workflows, and empower healthcare professionals while helping organizations meet industry expectations with Microsoft Copilot Studio.
Microsoft is also collaborating with several healthcafe systems and technology providers to build an AI solution using ambient technology that addresses nursing documentation by drafting flowsheets for review. This innovation expands on the company's long-standing strategic collaboration and joint development initiatives with Epic, an electronic healthcare records provider.
"AI is transforming nursing workflows by streamlining administrative tasks, allowing nurses to focus more on patient care," said Corey Miller, vice president of R&D at Epic, in a statement. "Together with Microsoft, we're using AI-powered ambient voice technology to populate patient assessments. Nurses using the tool are already sharing positive feedback on how it enhances personalized patient interactions."
"For nurses, the integration of AI-driven solutions into our workflows is a game-changer," said Terry McDonnell, senior vice president and chief nurse executive at Duke University Health System and vice dean for clinical affairs at Duke University School of Nursing, in a statement. "It allows us to focus more on patient care rather than the administrative burden of documentation. By automating tedious tasks, Microsoft's ambient AI solution helps alleviate burnout and gives us more time to connect with our patients at the bedside, where we truly make a difference."