Microsoft announced Thursday that it is unveiling several AI enhancements to Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare Innovation, including fresh healthcare AI models in Azure AI Studio, fresh healthcare data capabilities in Microsoft Fabric, and developer tools in Copilot Studio. Many AI improvements are available in preview.
During Tuesday’s media briefing, company executives also provided additional details about its partnership with Epic on AI-powered nursing workflows.
“In the broader healthcare and life sciences industry, these advances are dramatically improving patient care and rekindling the joy of practicing medicine among clinicians,” said Joe Petro, corporate vice president of healthcare and life sciences solutions and platforms at Microsoft, in a statement explaining the fresh capabilities.
Capturing genAI data for clinical insights
The ability to integrate structured and unstructured data in Microsoft Fabric is helping to transform the way users access, manage and act on data, the company says.
According to Umesh Rustoga, CEO, some of the fresh AI-powered innovations can combine electronic health record data to generate comprehensive insights and fuel consumption cases, including clinical imaging, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services claims, social determinants of health and more . Microsoft Cloud for healthcare.
“Organizations around the world have virtually begun to embrace the solution to create a unified data center that will enable them to not only create new insights, but also new artificial intelligence models to improve patient care and increase the efficiency of ambulatory care,” Rustogi said during the briefing.
A key fresh feature is conversational data integration.
Nuance’s generational voice AI tool, DAX Copilot, has been generally available for a year, and the company noted in its blog entry last month, which is characterized by extraordinary dynamics.
According to the company, this helps Northwestern Medicine physicians in Chicago complete at least 50% of their patient encounters, resulting in them spending an average of 24% less time taking notes and increasing their patient intake by an average of 11.3 times.
The health system integrated the AI co-pilot with Epic EHR.
“This integration now enables organizations to securely access DAX Copilot conversational data,” including audio files, clinical note drafts and more, Rustogi said.
Using native analytics tools in Azure and Fabric, healthcare organizations can analyze data and combine it with other patient data such as EHR data, patient engagement statistics, and more to create comprehensive data.
For example, by leveraging and harmonizing national and international public SDOH datasets, healthcare organizations can identify health-related social risks and needs to improve equity in healthcare.
These tools can also leverage standardized healthcare data analytics and care management templates to improve patient care by identifying high-risk individuals, optimizing treatment plans and improving care coordination, the company says.
Recent healthcare security application templates that can lend a hand with data management are also available in public preview on Microsoft Purview, the company said.
Verification of genAI results
Hadas Bitran, head of health and life sciences at Microsoft Israel R&D Center, said Tuesday that in Copilot Studio you can securely access healthcare-specific resources, including ready-made intelligence and healthcare employ cases.
Bitran is leading the development of artificial intelligence-based language services, natural language processing technology, conversational intelligence and personal health assistants. For developers, the Clinical Security API is available in private preview for additional employ cases, she said.
“These APIs can be used, for example, to evaluate and additionally validate the results of generative AI,” she explained. “Clinical highlighting helps identify the source of claims in responses based on underlying data or facts.”
She noted that the safeguard of clinical semantic validation helps verify that responses are aligned with validated clinical standards and ensures trust and stability.
Automated documentation for nurses
Thanks to its partnership with Epic Systems announced in August, Microsoft is creating an AI-powered documentation tool for nurses, which Mary Varghese Presti, vice president of portfolio evolution and incubation at Microsoft Health & Life Sciences, says will leverage Epic Rover to provide the best focused experience on the nurse.
At the press conference, she explained that the inspiration for collaborative nursing workflows – beyond the high levels of nurse burnout resulting from administrative burdens – is to enable nurses to work on documentation without eyes and hands.
“We can transform nursing documentation with voice,” she said. “We are also acutely aware that collaboration provides nurses with the best experience. Our goal was to create a seamless workflow – not add steps.”
The company said it is actively working with Advocate Health, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Duke Health, Intermountain Health Saint Joseph Hospital, Mercy, Northwestern Medicine, Stanford Health Care and Tampa General Hospital to develop ambient technology that will incorporate nursing documentation by developing flowsheets for reviews.
“Artificial intelligence is transforming nurse workflows by streamlining administrative tasks, enabling nurses to focus more on patient care,” Corey Miller, vice president of research and development at Epic, said in a statement.
“Together with Microsoft, we use AI-powered ambient voice technology to complete patient assessments. Nurses using this tool are already sharing positive feedback about how it improves personalized interactions with patients.”
Improving the development of artificial intelligence
The collection of core multimodal medical imaging models available in the Azure AI Model Catalog analyzes a variety of data types, including genomics and clinical documentation.
According to the company, they were developed in cooperation with partners such as Providence and Paige.ai. They enable healthcare organizations to quickly create, refine, and deploy custom AI tools while minimizing the computational and data requirements typically associated with building multimodal models from scratch.
“The development of foundational artificial intelligence models in pathology and medical imaging is expected to drive significant advances in cancer research and diagnostics,” Dr. Carlo Bifulco, chief medical officer of Providence Genomics, said in a statement.
“These models can complement human knowledge by providing knowledge beyond traditional visual interpretation, and as we move towards a more integrated, multimodal approach, they will transform the future of medicine.”
Building safe and sound AI agents
With fresh tools in Microsoft Copilot Studio, healthcare systems can also create custom AI agents to schedule appointments, match clinical trials, triage patients, serve connected patients, streamline clinical processes, and more.
Early adopters such as Cleveland Clinic have helped develop the service by providing feedback on its employ in healthcare settings and are already using it, Microsoft says.
A public preview is available healthcare agent service available.