Microsoft announced enhancements to its Cloud for Healthcare, introducing AI-powered solutions aimed at improving patient care, boosting operational efficiency, and easing the burden on healthcare professionals. Key announcements include new healthcare AI models in Azure AI Studio, capabilities for healthcare data solutions in Microsoft Fabric, the healthcare agent service in Copilot Studio, and an AI-driven nursing workflow solution. Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare is supporting healthcare organisations at every step of their journey, the company said last Thursday.
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"We are at an inflection point where AI breakthroughs are fundamentally changing the way we work and live," said Joe Petro, corporate vice president, Healthcare and Life Sciences Solutions and Platforms at Microsoft. "Across the broader healthcare and life sciences industry, these advancements are dramatically enhancing patient care and also rekindling the joy of practicing medicine for clinicians. Microsoft's AI-powered solutions are helping lead these efforts by streamlining workflows, improving data integration, and utilising AI to deliver better outcomes for healthcare professionals, researchers and scientists, payors, providers, medtech developers, and ultimately the patients they all serve."
New Healthcare AI Models
Microsoft announced the launch of new healthcare AI models, a collection of multimodal medical imaging foundation models available in the Azure AI model catalogue, developed in collaboration with Providence and Paige.ai. These models allow healthcare organisations to integrate and analyse various data types, including medical imaging and clinical records, facilitating the rapid deployment of tailored AI solutions, according to the company.
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"By using these models as a foundation, healthcare organisations can rapidly build, fine-tune, and deploy AI solutions tailored to their specific needs, all while minimising the extensive compute and data requirements typically associated with building multimodal models from scratch," the company said.
"The development of foundational AI models in pathology and medical imaging is expected to drive significant advancements in cancer research and diagnostics," said Carlo Bifulco, MD, chief medical officer of Providence Genomics and a co-author of the Prov-GigaPath study. "These models can complement human expertise by providing insights beyond traditional visual interpretation and, as we move toward a more integrated, multimodal approach, will reshape the future of medicine."
Microsoft Fabric Enhancements
Microsoft says the general availability of healthcare data solutions in Microsoft Fabric aims to simplify access to previously unstructured data with a single, unified AI-powered platform. Additionally, Microsoft launched New capabilities, including conversational data integration and social determinants of health (SDOH) public dataset transformation, designed to provide organisations with a comprehensive view of patient experiences and health-related social needs.
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Copilot Studio
"Healthcare organisations face numerous challenges, including workforce shortages, rising costs, and increasing patient care demands. Generative AI offers a potential solution to these challenges by automating administrative tasks, analysing vast amounts of data for actionable insights, and assisting healthcare professionals in decision-making," Microsoft said.
Addressing this, Microsoft has announced the public preview of the healthcare agent service in Copilot Studio to build Copilot agents for appointment scheduling, clinical trial matching, patient triaging, and more. Organisations can leverage the healthcare agent service to help create connected patient experiences, improve clinical workflows, and empower healthcare professionals while helping organisations meet industry expectations.
AI-powered Nursing Workflow
In response to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) prediction of a nursing shortage of 4.5 million by 2030, Microsoft is collaborating with healthcare organisations—including Advocate Health, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Duke Health, Intermountain Health Saint Joseph Hospital, Mercy, Northwestern Medicine, Stanford Health Care, and Tampa General Hospital—to develop AI solutions that automate nursing documentation. This initiative aims to reduce administrative burdens, allowing nurses to devote more time to patient care.
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"AI is transforming nursing workflows by streamlining administrative tasks, allowing nurses to focus more on patient care," said Corey Miller, vice president of R&D at Epic. "Together with Microsoft, we're using AI-powered ambient voice technology to populate patient assessments. Nurses using the tool are already sharing positive feedback on how it enhances personalised patient interactions."
"For nurses, the integration of AI-driven solutions into our workflows is a game changer," said Terry McDonnell, DNP, ANCP-BC, senior vice president and chief nurse executive at Duke University Health System, and vice dean for Clinical Affairs at Duke University School of Nursing, Duke Health. "It allows us to focus more on patient care rather than the administrative burden of documentation. By automating tedious tasks, Microsoft's ambient AI solution helps alleviate burnout and gives us more time to connect with our patients at the bedside, where we truly make a difference."
Microsoft says these new solutions adhere to the company's AI principles established in 2018 to help guide AI development and use. This announcement from the company comes ahead of the HLTH 2024 event to be held in Las Vegas from October 20 to 23.
