Microsoft Introduces AI To Streamline Nursing Tasks And Boost Care Delivery

On Thursday, Microsoft announced several new innovations within its Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare platform, designed to improve care delivery, enhance collaboration, and provide healthcare workers with AI-driven tools.

One of the central components is the new healthcare AI models which enable healthcare organizations to integrate and analyze a wide variety of data types—from medical imaging to genomics—allowing for more efficient deployment of AI solutions tailored to specific needs.

For example, MIT recently announced a new AI tool, ScribblePrompt, which speeds up medical image analysis and reduces annotation time by 28% compared to other models.

Additionally, a recent study found that an AI model achieved 98.71% accuracy in diagnosing diseases by analyzing patients’ tongues. It can detect conditions like diabetes, stroke, anemia, asthma, liver issues, COVID-19, and various vascular and gastrointestinal problems.

This approach is expected to drive progress in fields such as cancer research, where AI can offer insights that complement traditional diagnostic methods.

A significant development in this suite of updates is the AI-driven nursing workflow solution. This tool, created in collaboration with several healthcare institutions, automates the drafting of nursing documentation, which allows nurses to focus more on patient care rather than administrative tasks.

“With the World Health Organization (WHO) predicting a shortage of 4.5 million nurses by 2030, the urgency to deliver technology to support the nursing profession is felt more than ever” the company noted.

Corey Miller, vice president of R&D at Epic, highlighted how this AI solution is transforming nursing workflows.

“AI is transforming nursing workflows by streamlining administrative tasks, allowing nurses to focus more on patient care,” he said. The tool uses ambient voice technology to populate patient assessments, reducing the time spent on documentation.

Terry McDonnell, senior vice president and chief nurse executive at Duke University Health System, added, “By automating tedious tasks, Microsoft’s ambient AI solution helps alleviate burnout.”

CNBC noted that according to a report from the Office of the Surgeon General, nurses spend up to 41% of their time on documentation.

Microsoft also introduced a new healthcare agent service to help health-care organizations address challenges like staff shortages, rising costs, and high patient demands.

The healthcare agent service enables organizations to create their own AI-powered agents with reusable healthcare features and credible intelligence. The service supports various use cases, such as automating appointment scheduling and clinical trial matching, and allows plugin extensions for customization.

According to CNBC, many of the solutions Microsoft unveiled on Thursday are still in early development or available only in preview. Health-care organizations will test and validate these tools before Microsoft releases them more widely. The company did not disclose the pricing for the new tools.