As part of a joint artificial intelligence pilot program with Microsoft and Epic that launched in 2023 – and as the need to address workforce shortages and growing demand for healthcare – UW Health nurses began testing how In this way, the multilingual model could aid develop responses to patient questions submitted through the healthcare system’s patient portal.
“It is critical that we as nurses participate in the conversation about the use of this technology in patient care,” says Rudy Jackson, chief nursing officer at UW Health.
WHY IT IS IMPORTANT
Messages produced through LLM are reviewed and redacted, the Madison, Wisconsin-based health system said in its June 6 announcement.
Since September, more than 75 UW Health nurses have started using generative artificial intelligence to create more than 3,000 messages for patients in more than 30 departments.
The patient information he or she has generative access to is private and secure in the electronic health record system, UW Health says.
Nurses called it “fascinating.”
“I found the draft to be a useful place to start and I’m glad I could provide feedback on the improvements and features that will help make this a good tool for nurses and have a positive impact on our patients,” Amanda Weber, registered nurse, reported in statement from UW Health’s clinical manager.
UW Health says its goal is to shape the benefits that artificial intelligence can bring to patients, nurses and the health care industry as a whole, as well as improve academic nursing programs.
“We would like to try innovative methods to give our nurses the tools they need to focus on patient care,” Jackson added.
A BIGGER TREND
UW Health is also working with Epic on a modern effort to democratize health AI validation, which aims to standardize the process for testing AI models using local population data.
“Most healthcare organizations currently do not have the capacity or staff to test and monitor on-premises models,” Mark Sendak, director of population health and data science at the Duke Institute for Health Innovation and leader of the Health AI Partnership, said last month.
UW Health is working with a multi-stakeholder learning and collaboration group to test Epic’s first open-source tool and develop guidelines for applying artificial intelligence in health care.
The effort “is one of the things that will build trust with end users,” added Brian Patterson, UW Health’s director of health informatics for predictive analytics and artificial intelligence.
ON RECORDING
“It is very important that we as nurses participate in the discussion about the use of this technology in patient care,” Jackson said in a statement. “It’s exciting to see our nurses explore this technology and provide observations and recommendations on how to improve it.”