Last week, Northwestern Medicine announced that it had embedded Nuance’s Dragon Ambient eXperience Copilot into its Epic electronic health record and would deploy the ambient voice tool enterprise-wide.
WHY IT MATTERS
DAX Copilot, deployed through Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, is designed to help Northwestern Medicine clinicians document conversations with patients while reducing the burden of clinical documentation.
“We have seen significant benefits from DAX Copilot as it significantly enhances our ability to deliver exceptional patient care by reducing the administrative burden on our physicians,” Doug King, chief information officer at Northwestern Memorial HealthCare, said in a statement.
After some time has passed, the goal is to see further improvements in clinical and functional outcomes, as well as increased time for patients.
Nuance reports that physicians at Northwestern Medicine who used the tool in at least half of their visits now see more than 11 more patients per month, compared to before DAX Copilot was deployed.
In terms of financial benefits, the companies say co-pilot service users at Northwestern have seen higher levels of service coding, more accurate clinical documentation, and additional revenue from increased throughput and enhanced services.
Meanwhile, physicians said they were happy to spend less time in the EHR — including a 17% reduction in time spent charting after hours at home.
THE BIGGER TREND
Nuance points to research that shows more than half of physicians report feeling burned out by 2023. Another study from the KLAS Arch Collaborative found that clinicians at academic medical centers like Northwestern Medicine are particularly stressed due to more complex workflows and cumbersome documentation requirements.
ON THE RECORD
“The implementation of DAX Copilot will allow our physicians to spend more quality time with patients, focusing on their needs rather than on paperwork and data entry,” said Dr. Gaurava Agarwal, chief healthcare executive at Northwestern Memorial HealthCare. “This will improve the overall patient experience while improving physician well-being, allowing them to provide more efficient and satisfying care.”
Mike Miliard is executive editor of Healthcare IT News
Email: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS.
