Microsoft is promising to ease the time pressures on medical staff with a raft of new AI tools.
As we rush towards an election, the affordability and quality of medical care is a key concern among voters.
The computing giant is claiming that its new AI tools could help medical professionals save time by taking on administrative tasks, which could mean a cost saving for patients.
Helping to Build AI Systems Quicker
Although many of the solutions are in the development phase, Microsoft has shared what it believes the potential impact could be – and key is saving time.
“By integrating AI into health care, our goal is to reduce the strain on medical staff, foster the collective health team collaboration, enhance the overall efficiency of healthcare systems across the country.” – Mary Varghese Presti, vice president of portfolio evolution and incubation at Microsoft Health and Life Sciences
Open-Source AI Models
The launches include a set of open-source multimodal AI models, which can analyze not only text but also medical images, genomic data, and clinical records.
These models can be used to build apps and tools for specific needs – whether it be a doctor analyzing a slide or a nurse looking for a piece of information in a medical record.
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CNBC points to a report from the Office of the Surgeon General that reveals that nurses can spend more than 40% of their time just dealing with documentation, so the impact could be huge.
The data models can also be used to create AI agents that could help medical professionals find trials pertinent to their patient. It could look at medical histories or check guidelines. This health-care agent will be available from next week as a preview.
Documentation Tool for Nurses
The press event saw Microsoft give more details about its work with Epic Systems, a healthcare software vendor, which looks after the records of more than 280 million people in the US.
The partnership has seen the development of an AI-powered documentation tool for nurses. Microsoft already has a tool designed for this purpose for doctors called DAX copilot, but nurses obviously have different needs. “The nursing workflow is very different from that of physicians, and any solution developed for nurses needs to integrate with the way they work,” Presti explained.
“Our team has spent hours shadowing nurses during their shifts to see how they carry out their tasks and to discover where the greatest points of friction exist throughout their day.” – Mary Varghese Presti, vice president of portfolio evolution and incubation at Microsoft Health and Life Sciences
More Tests Ahead
What Microsoft didn’t reveal was the cost of any of the new tools nor specific timeframes.
It did share that it is working with healthcare organizations including Northwestern Medicine and Tampa General Hospital on developing the copilot for nurses.
