Nuance Communications, part of Microsoft, has announced the general availability of Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience Copilot for documentation support in Epic electronic health records.
WHY IT MATTERS
Generative artificial intelligence has the potential to free physicians from administrative tasks and increase clinical efficiency. After months of collaboration, Nuance’s DAX Copilot is available for full Epic EHR integration, the company said Thursday.
According to the announcement, Azure OpenAI Service, Nuance and Epic collaborated to accelerate the innovation of conversational and environmental technologies to improve healthcare provider and patient experiences, expand access to care and improve healthcare outcomes.
Delivering a genAI EHR-integrated tool in less than six months ushers in a new era in accelerated innovation, Peter Durlach, corporate vice president and chief strategy officer of Microsoft Health and Life Sciences, said in the statement.
DAX Copilot securely creates clinical notes and can record in-office and remote patient visits – with patient consent – directly into Epic’s Haiku mobile application. With the integration, the mobile EHR app produces a concept note that can be immediately reviewed and completed by a physician, Nuance said.
The goal — to help physicians focus more on patient care and less on documentation and typing — has been realized, according to 2023 survey data from thousands of physicians using DAX, Nuance said.
“Our physicians say DAX Copilot increases the already critical role of the Epic EHR by making clinical documentation an intuitive and simple part of delivering high-quality patient care,” added Brent Lamm, Chief Information Officer of UNC Health.
Surveyed physicians using DAX reported significant reductions in administrative burden, with 70% saying the AI tool embedded in the EHR reduced feelings of burnout and reduced time spent on clinical documentation by 50%. Nuance said.
They also reported an increase in the number of patients they were able to see per day, with some reporting they were able to handle an average of five additional appointments per clinic day.
Nuance noted that patients surveyed were positive about using genAI during appointments.
“Patients also say how much they appreciate the conversational interactions with their healthcare providers and how they really feel seen and heard during visits, while DAX Copilot unobtrusively takes care of the clinical documentation,” said Lamm.
THE BIG TREND
Nuance Communications and Epic announced broader availability of DAX for Epic customers in June.
Recently, Vanderbilt University Medical Center said physicians from the Department of General Internal Medicine and Public Health and the Department of Orthopedic Surgery will test the DAX Copilot and possibly evaluate its use by other departments as well.
“Generative AI holds promise in improving both the quality and efficiency of healthcare documentation,” said Dr. Dara Mize, chief medical information officer at VUMC, said in a statement released by the health care system earlier this month.
“The upcoming pilot marks an important step in VUMC’s exploration of the potential of AI in streamlining physician workflow and improving medical record keeping, while reducing time spent on documentation.”
ON THE RECORD
“Our core purpose is to improve care for every patient,” said Seth Hain, senior vice president of research and development at Epic. “This is best done when there is time and space for conversations between patients and doctors, because the system does the heavy lifting in creating the note.”
“Even with the high standards and strong results achieved during our years of collaboration,” Durlach added, “our groundbreaking partnership to integrate DAX Copilot with the Epic ecosystem stands out.”
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.