Nuance Communications, part of Microsoft, announced Friday that its Dragon Ambient eXperience Copilot automates clinical documentation during patient appointments in Meditech Expanse electronic health records.

WHY IT MATTERS

As a partner and a member of the Meditech Alliance Program, Nuance already supports the Expanse EHR with workflow assistance and documentation to help alleviate clinician burnout and improve patient care at the point of care, Nuance said in its announcement.

The addition DAX Copilot is an extension of Nuance and Meditech's ongoing collaboration through previous integration with Nuance's cloud-based Dragon Medical One speech recognition software – which earned Best in KLAS four years running.

The Dragon Medical platform enables clinicians to use their voices to update patient and clinical information as well as access patient information in EHRs, while DAX Copilot gives healthcare organizations the ability to adopt AI-powered clinical documentation applications at scale. 

By leveraging unobtrusive generative artificial intelligence and ambient speech recognition technologies during live patient visits, doctors can eliminate manual data entry and immediately review the automated clinical documentation in the Meditech EHR.

Generative AI backed by Microsoft resources enhances Meditech's investments in Dragon Medical, said Robert Dahdah, corporate vice president of global health and life sciences and Microsoft, in a statement.

THE LARGER TREND

Nuance first announced its AI virtual assistance for healthcare technology in 2017 while Meditech, one of the largest EHR developers, has explored an array of AI initiatives and partnerships over the last few years. 

In 2021, the EHR vendor partnered with Google to adopt advanced natural language processing and large language models. Then in October, Helen Waters, chief operating officer, told Healthcare IT News that the company was using conversational AI in its virtual assistant to automate tasks and augment clinical decision-making, for example, searching patient charts and placing orders.

"We carefully evaluate various types of AI," she explained.

"We determine which AI can provide the strongest stability to improve the end-user experience and, obviously, more importantly, care outcomes," and "judiciously incorporate those capabilities" into workflows to support health systems in their objectives. 

Nuance previously announced the integration of DAX Copilot into Epic EHRs in January after a six-month testing phase. According to the company, clinicians surveyed reported a significant reduction in administrative burden with access to the genAI tool. Also, 70% reported that embedded AI in the EHR reduced feelings of burnout and cut time spent on clinical documentation by 50%.

"Our clinicians say that DAX Copilot enhances the already vital role of the Epic EHR by making clinical documentation an intuitive and straightforward part of providing high-quality patient care," said Brent Lamm, chief information officer of UNC Health.

ON THE RECORD

"With DAX Copilot, we will extend our support for conversational and ambient AI to further reduce the documentation burden on today's busy clinicians," Jeff Kimball, Meditech associate vice president, said in a statement. 

"DAX Copilot is well-aligned with MEDITECH's strategy to accelerate innovation and fundamentally improve physician and patient experiences, clinical efficiency and healthcare costs and outcomes," Dahdah added.

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.