Growing demand, excessive documentation requirements, and inefficient workflows are all contributing to nurses’ exhaustion, feelings of burnout, and high turnover rates.

Based on recent conversations I’ve had with nursing executives, one thing is crystal clear: to make a real difference for patients and clinicians, innovation needs to flow throughout the care continuum—and the nursing workflow is no exception. It is the most ubiquitous given nurses comprise the largest workforce in healthcare.

With 32% of nurses planning to exit the US workforce this year¹ and the World Health Organization (WHO) predicting a shortage of 4.5 million nurses by 2030,² the urgency to deliver technology to support the nursing profession is felt more than ever.

Nursing info hub

Empower nurses to efficiently document care

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Listening to nurses’ voices

The people who truly understand the intricacies and challenges of nursing workflows are those who live and breathe it every day. To build an innovative solution that’s impactful, nurses and their leadership need to be the guiding light of the process, from design to launch and all the way through to successful adoption by the workforce.

As Lea Ann Arnold, Director of Nursing Informatics at Northwestern Medicine, explains:

“Nurses need to be at the table. They need to be a voice; they need to be able to help technology teams figure out you can’t just put a solution out there. You must get into the actual workflows and understand how nurses work.”

Lea Ann Arnold, Director of Nursing Informatics at Northwestern Medicine

Terry McDonnell, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Executive at Duke Health, agrees: “The number one key in ensuring that any technology is going to be successful or useful for nurses is to really involve nurses in the design.”

“Setting nurses up for success and making sure that they are part of the solution is crucial. We cannot expect them to accept a solution just because we think it is the way to do it. We need to bring nurses along with the decision and make sure they feel that they understand how to use the technology,” said Tammy Daniel, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Baptist Health of Northeast Florida. 

AI in the nursing workflow

AI is rapidly evolving technology, and it’s crucial that its powers are extended to nursing workflows. Nurses need to manage their workloads in a way that doesn’t lead to increased stress and burnout, allowing nurses to focus their energy on patient care.

“It’s so critical for our nurses to understand AI,” says Arnold. “Then they start to realize that that adding AI is not meant to replace the human factor, but it’s really meant to augment and take off that work that could be done by a machine.”

Microsoft is committed to empowering customers with cutting-edge tools designed to harness the power of generative AI. Our dedication to innovation continues in our latest investment in industry-specific solutions that enable businesses to adopt and integrate AI technologies swiftly and efficiently. We are seizing the remarkable opportunity that AI presents in healthcare, propelling the industry towards a transformative future.

Creating a purpose-built solution with nurses at the table

Though physicians and nurses work closely together to treat and care for patients, the working day of a nurse looks very different to that of a physician, and nursing documentation workflow is likewise separate and distinct. Nurses are mobile during their shift, moving between rooms to see their patients. They have bedside conversations and capture patient information in highly structured formats such as flowsheets.

Microsoft has been on a multi-year journey to address the challenge of nursing documentation and complex workflows with sophisticated AI to build a solution we’ve deployed at multiple customers.

We gathered feedback from hundreds of frontline nurses, nurse managers, and executives. Our team has spent hours shadowing nurses during their shifts to see how they carry out their tasks and to discover where the greatest points of friction exist throughout their day.

We established the ambient category five years ago for physician documentation and now hundreds of organizations use our AI capabilities for clinical workflow. We are building on that success and defining the standard for AI in nursing. 

“Patients are complex, and we need to think about how we’re going to document differently—because ultimately the value of nursing is back at the bedside, it is not the taxing work of documenting in a flowsheet. With the work that Microsoft has done with providers, I was very excited to be chosen as one of the pilot sites to truly inform that roadmap.”

Gretchen Brown, Chief Nursing Information Officer at Stanford Health Care

We are actively collaborating with several leading healthcare organizations—including Advocate Health, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Duke Health, Intermountain Health Saint Joseph Hospital, Mercy, Northwestern Medicine, NYU Langone Health, Stanford Health Care, and Tampa General Hospital—and building an AI solution that addresses nursing documentation by completing flowsheets supported by ambient technology, allowing nurses to focus less on paperwork and more on their patients.​ Many of these organizations have already deployed a preview version as we further optimize the capabilities before making them generally available.

Tapping into our proven track record with Dragon Medical and electronic health record (EHR) embedded workflows, our initial work in this space builds on a longstanding strategic relationship and joint development collaboration with Epic.

Explore the potential of AI for nursing

Nursing is on the brink of significant innovation. We see this with the momentum of virtual nursing, where health systems are investing in technologies focused on supporting nursing care teams. We aim to meet the immediate pain point of documentation and, in time, fundamentally reshape the experience of nurses, helping to evolve that experience into something intuitive and efficient, where the non-patient care work can be facilitated by cutting edge technologies working in the backdrop, returning the human connection of patient and nurse to the forefront.

As I engage in the dialogue between nursing leaders and industry innovators, I have no doubt the future will be transformed. Collectively, we have the ambition and the conviction to point these breakthrough technologies at our most critical problems, in support of some of the most essential members of the healthcare industry: our nurses!

¹Surveyed nurses consider leaving direct patient care at elevated rates, McKinsey, 2022.

²Nursing and midwifery, World Health Organization, 2024.

The post Transforming the nursing workflow with ambient voice and AI appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

As healthcare providers continue to face a complex mix of challenges, including severe financial strain, increasing competition, clinician burnout, and workforce shortages, the need to improve outcomes by using information and technology to enable quality care is stronger than ever.

Amidst rapid change, the healthcare sector is embracing adaptability and resilience. Facilities are rethinking their approaches and harnessing innovative technologies and digital tools to streamline processes and empower healthcare teams to provide exceptional care. Their ability to adapt in the face of adversity is nothing short of inspiring. It has enabled healthcare providers to maintain a high level of service despite the most demanding circumstances.

Providers must also capitalize on digital technologies to help improve operational efficiencies, quality of care, and patient satisfaction and retention, as well as optimize revenue cycle management.

Microsoft empowers the frontline workforce

We are committed to investing in innovative solutions with next-generation AI to help frontline workers thrive.

Read the blog

Tools like Microsoft Teams play a pivotal role in the transformative journey in healthcare. For example, healthcare workers are using Teams as their communications and collaboration hub, facilitating virtual video visits and keeping care teams connected. We’ve seen strong and consistent double-digit growth in frontline workers’ monthly active users of Microsoft Teams in the healthcare industry this year. This highlights the crucial role digital tools play in shaping the future of healthcare, fostering seamless operations, collaboration, and the exchange of vital health information.

Enhancing operational efficiency in healthcare with AI and digital tools

Between fluctuating team schedules and staying up to date with their often large and dispersed healthcare teams—from physicians to phlebotomists—maintaining end-to-end visibility on operations can get time-consuming for managers. But today’s digital tools, including AI, are reshaping the healthcare teams and support staff work.

Lightening the load for frontline healthcare managers

It’s often a complex task for care team managers to quickly identify open items to address throughout the week such as open shifts and ad hoc, time-specific work. Using chat history, shifts data, and more, Microsoft 365 Copilot helps managers improve operational and healthcare outcomes by quickly getting an AI-powered list of important action items specific to their care team and location.

Managers can identify open items such as open shifts that need to be covered with a new Shifts plugin for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Soon, Microsoft 365 Copilot can ground prompts and retrieve insights for frontline healthcare managers leveraging data from the Shifts app in addition to user and company data it has access to such as Teams chat history, SharePoint, emails, and more.  

Enhancing care team coordination and collaboration

Communication within the healthcare chain is evolving, transcending isolated pockets, and embracing a connected ecosystem. Real-time information exchange has become the norm, showcasing the industry’s determination to remain cohesive and collaborative. This connectedness empowers healthcare professionals to make informed decisions swiftly, and enhances patient outcomes and overall care delivery.

Ease of communication

When using the hotline feature on Teams certified phone devices, care teams can simplify and help secure contact management to always reach the right colleague or patient over calling. Devices can now be programmed to directly dial pre-configured hotline phone numbers or contacts, such as a provider’s emergency services, help deck, or security desk.

Leveraging modern communications to connect providers across health systems

Effective organization-wide communication from health providers main headquarters is essential to the success of its care teams, yet getting the right message to the right people can be challenging. Now, Announcements in Viva Connections lets corporate teams deliver communications and create notifications for clinicians and care teams within the home experience of Teams.

To reduce communication overload and help healthcare workers focus on what’s most relevant to them and their patients, organizational leaders can now target important communications like urgent announcements, role-specific updates, and safety policy changes to care teams and other frontline workers with Announcements in Viva Connections. With these new features, important messages are now delivered through push notifications and communications that surface in the home experience within Teams, where healthcare workers often start their day. Announcements are coming to tablet and mobile experiences in September 2023, with desktop experiences coming later this year.

To enhance the home experience in Teams for healthcare with frontline workers who span multiple sites or locations, we are excited to announce that a provider can now have multiple experiences. This new feature allows organizations to provide a tailored experience that reflects each location’s look and feel and customize the dashboard for each location’s unique needs. Multiple home experiences are now available through the Viva Connections app in Teams. Learn more about the recent enhancements to home experiences in Teams.

Drive engagement with campaign targeting

It’s important for providers to be able to target frontline care teams and drive engagement around their organization’s mission and core priorities. With new Targeted Campaigns in Viva Engage, you can now select specific audiences to reach with targeted communication campaigns and initiatives—perfect for scenarios like safety campaigns, policy changes, and other initiatives where you want to get the word out to employees and get people involved.

Personalize workplace communication with generative AI

Copilot in Microsoft Viva Engage helps healthcare leaders create compelling and inspiring posts from simple prompts or trending topics within workplace communities and storyline conversations. Corporate communicators can receive suggestions to further personalize messages, adjust tone and length, and even suggest relevant images to help drive great engagement on the frontline. Leaders can also utilize Copilot to analyze engagement metrics, assess sentiment, and recommend responses. Learn more about Copilot in Viva, coming later this year.

Providing trusted experiences to support health teams

Healthcare providers are committed to improving the work experience of their frontline workforce. They are investing in creating secure, user-friendly environments, reflecting their forward-thinking mindset and dedication to supporting their staff. They recognize that adaptability and progress are intrinsically tied to the people who make healthcare possible, ensuring a sustainable and fulfilling future.

Simplifying digital identity and personal workspaces

You can now provide your healthcare workers with a digital identity and personalized workspace that allows them to seamlessly access what they need to do their work without context switching, no matter the device or ecosystem. With personalized device experiences, care teams can spend less time logging in and out with intuitive experiences that make it easy to be more secure. Frontline healthcare workers can simply and quickly sign in and out of shared devices.

With Windows 365 Frontline, shift and part-time workers can unlock the power of Cloud PCs, allowing them to securely access their personalized Windows experience on any device. Instead of the common hassles that come with sharing physical PCs, Windows 365 Frontline provides personalized Cloud PCs, enabling your frontline employees to work from anywhere, ultimately helping to boost their productivity and job satisfaction. 

When workers log on, they have immediate access to their personalized apps, desktops, data, and settings, so they can pick up where they left off, regardless of their device or location. Integration with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) and Microsoft Intune makes it easy to configure, deploy, manage, and secure your Cloud PCs, enabling you to maximize existing technology resources to meet the needs of all your employees. Windows 365 Frontline is now generally available. Read the announcement blog or contact sales to learn more.

Equip the healthcare industry with Microsoft solutions

In the delicate balance between adaptability and perseverance, the healthcare industry forges a path towards a promising future. Embracing new operational efficiencies, leveraging enhanced communications and connectivity, and fostering a secure work experience are pivotal elements of this journey. The unwavering spirit and commitment of healthcare workers drive these transformative shifts, enabling the industry to provide exceptional care while navigating the complexities of a changing landscape.

Whether it’s improving communication between care team members or enhancing provider operations with AI, Microsoft has solutions to equip frontline healthcare workers to meet new and evolving industry demands.  

• Connect with an expert to learn more about Microsoft frontline solutions.
• Discover how you can connect your customers, your people, and your data with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.
• Explore additional Microsoft Teams frontline solutions for healthcare.
• Learn more about Microsoft’s next-generation AI set to transform the frontline.

The post How next-generation AI and digital tools are transforming healthcare appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

In response, providers are increasingly embracing the cloud to speed digital transformation, boosting their agility, resiliency, and ability to deliver the best care possible.

In the e-book “Enhancing healthcare delivery with cloud solutions,” discover how to create and sustain a competitive advantage in the digital era. The e-book outlines four key ways to realize better patient outcomes while increasing operational efficiencies with a cloud-first approach.

You’ll also get insights into how to:

• Equip providers and patients with innovative tools.
• Streamline care delivery with strategic solutions.
• Plan and execute strategies for implementing new healthcare solutions.
• Drive positive change with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.

Enhancing healthcare delivery with cloud solutions

Explore how to improve healthcare team collaboration, elevate patient engagement, and improve clinical care.

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What do patients expect from healthcare delivery?

Rapid, continuous change is unquestionably now the norm across the healthcare ecosystem. Yet while COVID-19 prompted a new period of evolution in healthcare delivery, change has always been inherent in healthcare and IT.

Even prior to COVID-19, consumers began seeking more convenient, individualized, and equitable healthcare services. Providers, in turn, began looking for ways to deliver them.

Today’s consumers expect personalized experiences across the patient journey, from initial contact to post-treatment follow-up. They’re engaged in making decisions about their health and healthcare spending, and they expect quick, easy access to their medical information. In addition, they increasingly rely on telemedicine, remote monitoring, AI-powered health bots, and other types of virtual care.

In a recent consumer survey, 80 percent of respondents indicated that they had accessed care through telemedicine. Groups traditionally underserved within healthcare showed notable increases in adoption. Also, for the first time, telemedicine surpassed in-person visits as the preferred channel for prescription refills and minor illness care.¹

These survey results speak to the fact that consumers want and expect to take advantage of new avenues for healthcare delivery. Healthcare leaders are prudent to take notice. Often, if a provider can’t meet a patient’s expectations for convenient, affordable services, the patient will seek out one that will.

Respond to patient and business needs with agility

As patient expectations continue to evolve, the onus is on providers to give patients the care they need—where, when, and how they want it. A provider’s ability to offer personalized care in healthcare builds brand trust and loyalty, which in turn drives profitability and continuity of care.

Providers must also generate useful medical insights and make them available—often at the point of care—to clinicians, patients and their families, and other stakeholders. In addition, the healthcare industry is shifting to value-based care, which links payments to patient outcomes and service quality, equity, and cost. To be reimbursed, providers need to provide metrics tracking their healthcare performance improvements.

These changes come at a time when data created, shared, and stored across healthcare ecosystems continues to grow exponentially. Providers are faced with the challenges of protecting sensitive data from cyberattacks and data theft in ways that adhere to multiple regulations and requirements.

In 2022, the United States Department of Health and Human Services received reports of more than 700 healthcare data breaches, ranking it as the second worst year ever.² Data breaches can not only threaten patient safety by delaying diagnoses and treatments because of unexpected IT system outages, they also can result in huge financial losses for healthcare organizations, including through insurance premiums increases, lawsuits, and regulatory fines.

In short, today’s providers need greater flexibility to respond to ever-changing patient and business needs. With the right cloud platform, they can:

• Quickly develop, deploy, and scale new, innovative applications.
• Streamline workflows and reduce expenses using AI and automation.
• More effectively deal with worker shortages and cost issues.
• Securely connect and analyze large volumes of disparate data.
• Minimize upfront healthcare technology investments.
• Free time for IT teams to focus on strategic business needs.

Optimize healthcare delivery and improve patient outcomes

Providers that take a cloud-first approach are better prepared to solve problems and act on opportunities for growth. This greater agility and resilience arises in large part from improved collaboration and innovation.

First, providers can support more effective collaboration by using an open, secure cloud foundation to unite information, people, and processes. By pulling clinical, demographic, behavioral, and other data from multiple sources into the cloud, they can create 360-degree, longitudinal views of patient journeys. They can also reduce time to insights with AI and advanced analytics, as well as accelerate digital access with cloud storage.

Second, providers with cloud infrastructure can drive rapid, continued innovation in healthcare. This includes launching novel solutions and tools and automating high-value workflows. In addition, healthcare organizations that innovate are more apt to sustain performance improvements and establish themselves as industry leaders. They can also more easily build strategic partnerships and make acquisitions that create competitive advantage, such as by expanding their data assets and core capabilities.

Through increased collaboration and innovation, teams across provider organizations can optimize healthcare delivery and improve patient outcomes. Consider these examples:

• Frontline clinical workers use connected, secure devices to consult with specialists at the point of care—and more quickly diagnose patient conditions.
• Care managers coordinate patient aftercare by using web portals to connect with families and payors.
• Revenue-cycle managers minimize unpaid bills by streamlining collections through automation.
• Sales and marketing professionals tap into individual and population group insights to better target—and engage with—consumers.
• IT operations work with healthcare technology vendors to build solutions tailored for specific care systems.

Most important, by offering patients more personalized, convenient, and affordable services, providers empower patients with greater control over their healthcare.

Move forward confidently with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

Teaming with the right cloud partner is essential to a successful digital strategy. With Microsoft, your organization can maximize the value of your existing Microsoft Cloud and other cloud investments and also add new capabilities from the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.

Wherever you are in evolving your legacy infrastructure and merging data across avenues of care, accelerate your transformation with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. It provides trusted capabilities that make it easier to overcome challenges efficiently, adapt quickly, and strengthen competitiveness.

Learn more

To discover more ways to empower healthcare team collaboration, elevate patient engagement, improve clinical and operational insights, and protect healthcare information, get the e-book “Enhancing Healthcare Delivery with Cloud Solutions.”

¹Consumer adoption of digital health in 2022: Moving at the speed of trust, Rock Health.

²2022 Healthcare Data Breach Report, The HIPAA Journal.

The post Elevate healthcare delivery with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Introducing Unified member view for payors 

In this release, we continue to expand our investment across a new vertical with Unified member view (preview), our first solution for health payors. Similar to Unified patient view, Unified member view provides a single place to aggregate access and utilize different types of data instead of toggling between multiple screens and systems. Using Microsoft Power Apps, Unified member view enables payors to view complete records that combine data from various sources throughout the healthcare system.   

Built on a common data model derived from Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) that make it easier for payors to securely exchange data with their providers and other FHIR-supported systems. Unified member view is a highly customizable and extendable solution that enables customers and partners to create innovative solutions targeting different payor scenarios.  

Using Unified member view, users can access all the aspects of member data and health insights in one solution in a single view. As part of a seamless experience, users can view information from various sources, including claims and lab reports. Member events such as admissions, discharge, and appointment history can also be visualized. Actionable information, such as gaps in care, suggested next best actions, and pending immunizations, can be computed in custom services and surfaced in this solution. Using this, data health organizations can derive insights to drive better member engagement, coordinate care, and manage population health. Unified member view is designed to help payors proactively reduce costs while also managing care.

Empowering Patient journeys 

Improving patient experience and satisfaction begins with understanding the patient journey. The series of experiences and interactions that a patient has with a healthcare organization—from initial contact to post-treatment follow-up—makes up the patient journey. By identifying various touchpoints, health organizations can pinpoint areas for improvement and ensure that patients have a seamless experience at every stage of their journey. By understanding the patient journey, healthcare organizations can optimize their services and tailor their efforts to attract and retain patients and members. 

Patient outreach is a patient campaign management application that helps organize and automate marketing and outreach to patients. Extending the customer journey orchestration engine from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing to support diverse users, the Patient outreach application enables health organizations to engage patients in patient care decisions with personalized patient engagement solutions. Updates to Patient outreach include the addition of the Patient journey (preview)—empowering health organizations to effectively map and analyze Patient journeys. 

Optimizing each touchpoint in a patient’s experience can help providers improve patient satisfaction, retention, and loyalty, while payors can address efficiencies and the return on investment of their health plans. This application enables health organizations to orchestrate trigger-based workflows across patient touchpoints to automate repetitive tasks and allow patients to get personalized care faster. We see this as an opportunity not only to improve communication with the patient but to make it more efficient for healthcare workers.  

Device data support for Care Management 

As healthcare expands beyond the clinician’s office to include wearable devices and in-home patient care, Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare has developed solutions and data integration capabilities for health organizations to make it easier for them to provide care anywhere. Our aim is to make it easier for caregivers to access and track patients’ vitals and to gain early insights into patient conditions. Device data support for Care Management (preview) leverages the MedTech service in Azure Health Data Services to normalize data from diverse medical devices and convert it into the FHIR format in a secure way. The MedTech service enables data coming from the Internet of Things (IoT) devices to be integrated with other clinical data across health systems. 

By integrating the device data support capability inside Care Management, care managers can access the patient’s vital data, assess trends, and determine the next best actions for their patient. This enables clinical users to stay on top of a patient’s long-term health. Health organizations can add new health devices when required as well as maintain an inventory of these devices. Care managers can also assign, modify, and track data on devices, and Microsoft Power BI charts offer visualization of tracked data for easier evaluation. With readings analytics through Care Management, organizations can deliver personalized care by understanding the needs of the individual patient as well as the needs of the broader patient population.  

Life365, a leading remote patient monitoring solution provider is building solutions on top of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare—empowering payors and providers to connect and scale to large patient populations. The Life365 Virtual Care Platform will offer the ability to provide a virtual first approach to connecting with patients and access to more than 400 medical devices intended for home care. This integration will allow remote patient monitoring data to be accessed through the cloud and enable health organizations to scale to large patient populations, mitigating the high utilization of resources and associated costs. 

“Life365 integrated to the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare platform allows health organizations to shift from a reactive to proactive approach to care. By receiving insights into patient conditions, clinicians can intervene proactively and determine the appropriate course for care, ideally, helping reduce the risk of emergency room visits.”—Kent Dicks, CEO, Life365.

Easily build applications for health with Power Platform

Health organizations are considering low-code development to improve productivity, gain faster time-to-market, experiment more easily, and overall, be more agile when responding to market changes. A key blocker has been the inability to pull health data from multiple sources and manage it in a secure and compliant way.   

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare includes configurable solutions to exchange data between Dataverse and external systems using the FHIR standard. Dataverse Healthcare APIs provide bidirectional synchronization between Dataverse and FHIR services such as Azure Health Data Services.  

As part of the April 2023 release, Virtual Health Data Tables (general availability) has been updated to include support for the create, update, and delete FHIR operations. Utilizing this functionality, customers can perform real-time updates to FHIR resource data on the remote FHIR service directly from within the Power Platform. This enables health customers to leverage Microsoft no-code and low-code Power Platform to build health applications, greatly simplifying the complexities of the FHIR standard. With the new capabilities, Microsoft is helping organizations reduce the cost of duplicate health data by directly connecting apps to where the data exists. Keeping data in fewer places means security improves by reducing the number of integration points and stores that need to be secured. 

Learn more about new capabilities with Microsoft

Read the links below and visit our team at HIMSS 2023 to learn more about new clinical and operational insights capabilities such as Project Health Insights (preview), the new Azure applied AI service that leverages multiple Cognitive Services, Healthcare API services , and other Azure resources.  

• Explore our demos and visit our in-booth Learning Center at HIMSS 2023 booth #1201.
• Learn more about Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.
• Try Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare with a free trial.
• Learn more about the latest feature release for Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.

Transform the healthcare journey

Deliver better experiences, insights, and care with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.

Discover our solutions

MEDICAL DEVICE DISCLAIMER. Microsoft product(s) and service(s) (1) are not designed, intended or made available as a medical device(s), and (2) are not designed or intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or judgment and should not be used to replace or as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or judgment. 

The post Latest Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare capabilities optimize payor, provider productivity appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

In our latest feature release for Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, we’re excited to share how we can help your organization deliver exceptional patient and member experiences, accelerate data-driven decision-making, support your healthcare workforce, and enhance collaboration across the care continuum.

New Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare features accelerate transformation for health payors

We continue to help our customers and partners maximize the value of their investment in Microsoft Cloud technologies with industry specific apps, connectors, workflows, data, and AI models. With today’s announcement, and building on our October 2022 release, we’re accelerating value of the Microsoft Cloud and expanding our investment across a new vertical for health payors and insurers, which will complement the existing capabilities for healthcare providers:

• Unified member view for payors (preview). Helps organizations foster deeper member relationships by delivering useful member data to help relationship managers with a deeper understanding of a member’s wellness goals, important life moments, and other personal attributes. This application provides a comprehensive view of member data and member insights in one place for payor organizations. It builds upon the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare Payor data model, previewed in 2022, and combines member information about claims, coverage, risk profile, care plans, and more. Customers can utilize this feature within existing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights instances or utilize Microsoft Power Platform for building new member profile templates.
• Care journey templates for care management outreach (preview). Now payors and providers can automate workflows with common scenario templates (for example, patient discharge, care plan off track, diabetes management, and more) for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing that can be used out of the box or customized for care management scenarios and help improve the quality of the care journey for patients and members. Providers and payors can send messages through Microsoft Teams, surface to-dos in the patient interaction timeline, and allow for secure messaging through Patient Access Portal. The patient journey feature extends communication channels beyond email to include text messaging and push notifications.
• Device data support for remote care management (preview). Built within Microsoft Power Platform, this feature enables healthcare organizations to support better hybrid care services, resulting in fewer patient visits to clinics and more frequent insights into patients’ health. This feature allows care teams and care managers to remotely monitor their patients’ vital health data, identify trends with that data, and manage their inventory of assigned medical devices. This feature builds upon the capabilities of MedTech service in Azure Health Data Services as well that of our independent software vendor (ISV) partner, Life365, that has integration to more than 400 original equipment manufacturer (OEM) devices.
• Enhanced operations support for Virtual Health Data Tables (general availability). We have further enhanced the Virtual Health Data Tables functionality to include support for creating and updating, as well as deleting Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) data. This feature now allows users of Microsoft Power Platform based applications, built leveraging Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare Common Data Model and Virtual Health Data Tables, to also trigger real-time updates of clinical data stored in FHIR servers like Azure Health Data Services without the need for duplicating that data in Dataverse.

We recently announced our expanded collaboration with Cognizant and the plans to integrate Cognizant’s TriZetto healthcare products with the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. Through this integration we will be able to help support our mutual clients, deliver enhanced patient and member engagement, have access to improved data interoperability, improve insights, and achieve operational efficiencies in a significantly shorter time-to-value. Our companies will also collaborate to develop and run Cognizant’s current and future healthcare software as a service (SaaS) solution on Microsoft Azure, migrate new and existing clients from on premises environments to streamlined functions managed on the Microsoft Cloud, and support future technologies designed to deliver new insights for payers, providers, and consumers.

Seize the full potential of AI, while safeguarding your business, your data, and your health workforce

At Microsoft, we believe that AI is the defining technology of our time. Our company has been at the forefront of cutting-edge AI research and continually integrates powerful, innovative AI technologies into our products and services to help customers do more. We also recognize that data is the fuel that powers AI technology, and peak performance requires clean, integrated, accessible data. We continue to make huge investments in data and AI research, technologies, and partners because we’re committed to bringing technology and people together to realize the promises of AI responsibly.

Our momentum continues with updates across our Azure AI Services for Health:

• Text analytics for health released social determinants of health (SDoH) and ethnicity support. Enables unlocking mentions of social, environmental, and demographics factors from unstructured biomedical data including assertion detection such as negation of substance uses. Moreover, timing, frequency and amounts mentioned in the context of SDoH will be captured and associated with the entities using semantic relations that will now be surfaced as well. Healthcare organizations, providers, researchers, and pharmaceutical companies can extract insights, improve care, assess health inequity issues, track health outcomes, as well as incorporate underrepresented groups into clinical trials and research, breaking cycles of disparity. 
• Project Health Insights (preview). New Azure applied AI service that provides pre-built models which perform a decision support conclusion that can help health organizations solve high-value productivity challenges for clinical trial matching, and OncoPhenotypes. Project Health Insights models will enable healthcare providers to rapidly identify key cancer attributes within their patient populations based on their tumor site, tumor histology, and cancer staging. The models also matches patients to potentially suitable clinical trials, according to the trial’s eligibility criteria and patient data helping find clinical trials, that patients could be qualified for, as well as finding a cohort of potentially eligible patients to a list of clinical trials.
• Azure Health Bot integration with Azure OpenAI Service (preview). We are releasing a new Azure Health Bot template that allows our customers to experiment with the integration of Azure OpenAI Service into their Health Bot instances for fallback answers. This feature does not aim to facilitate the bot to answer unknown queries in the medical space, rather, it enables customers to access the Azure OpenAI Service API and decide how to use the model to improve their bot built through the Azure Health Bot service. Currently, we are offering the preview for internal testing and evaluation purposes only.

Today, we are also excited to announce the general availability of the accelerator kit for healthcare as part of the Responsible AI Dashboard in Azure Machine Learning. The Responsible AI Dashboard is applicable across industries; the accelerator kit for healthcare is aimed at training and debugging models for fairness, explainability, biases, and more before they are implemented in healthcare settings. The Responsible AI Dashboard accelerator kit for healthcare is a valuable tool to help check models for fairness prior to model adoption, allowing for confidence to use AI to inform space planning in hospitals or dispatching medical staff in facilities.

In addition to model debugging, the Responsible AI Dashboard accelerator kit for healthcare in Azure Machine Learning can equip healthcare providers with directional and causal relationship analyses between historical patient data and health scores to better provide lifestyle recommendations and modifications for patients.

Foster better collaboration and empower your healthcare workforce

Today, global health systems and payors are turning to collaborative technology platforms—intended to reduce administrative burden and proactively share data for interventions—to drive much-needed change. Technology should offer better ways of working, evolving the parts of healthcare delivery that are working and eliminating those that aren’t.  

In our booth at HIMSS 2023, attendees can experience the power of Microsoft Teams to simplify care coordination to help reduce clinician burnout, streamline communication and data sharing, facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration, and improve the patient-care team relationship—without compromising data security and compliance or adding unnecessary friction.

Virtual care tools reduce constraints on what clinical teams can accomplish and enable new and different ways to work. By leveraging virtual care, you remove barriers that hinder traditional care delivery models and empower people to create new solutions that are far more flexible, efficient, and supportive. Virtual Appointments in Microsoft Teams provides an out-of-the-box solution for clinicians to make patient-care team interactions as easy and personalized as possible, now generally available. Built on top of scheduling solutions like bookings or integrated with your scheduling solution through application programming interfaces (APIs), Virtual Appointments enable care teams to serve their patients in new and innovative ways. And with Teams Premium, healthcare organizations get advanced Virtual Appointments to manage the end-to-end appointment experience with capabilities like text messaging, custom-branded waiting rooms, analytics, and more.

For healthcare organizations using Epic® or Oracle Cerner, the Microsoft Teams EHR connector enables care teams to schedule and launch Teams virtual visits directly from their electronic health record (EHR) system. The connector gives patients flexibility with the option to join virtual visits via browser, the Teams app, patient provider portals, or text messaging, and offers support for group visits. Microsoft Teams with Teladoc Health Solo’s medical-grade whole-person virtual care delivery solutions for hospitals and health systems helps to optimize clinical efficiency, improve patient satisfaction, reduce burnout, and increase profitability, all while supporting an organization’s telehealth goals for today and tomorrow.

Health that connects and tech that cares at HIMSS 2023

We’re excited to join other innovators at the HIMSS 2023 conference to showcase how customers’ need for flexibility, choice, and future innovation doesn’t have to mean more complexity, people, and cost. For those of you traveling to Chicago for HIMSS 2023, I look forward to seeing you there. And I look forward to showcasing our latest Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare capabilities and more.

Here are additional ways you can learn more about Microsoft updates:

• Explore our demos and visit our in-booth Learning Center at HIMSS 2023 booth #1201
• Learn more about Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare
• Try out a free limited trial of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

Transform the healthcare journey

Deliver better experiences, insights, and care with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.

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• Epic® is a registered trademark of Epic Systems Corporation.
• For Oracle Cerner customers, the EHR Connector is only available in the United States.

The post Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare: Empowering healthcare to deliver meaningful outcomes appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Microsoft will soon join industry thought leaders and changemakers representing every sector across global healthcare at HIMSS23, from April 17 to 21, 2023, in Chicago, IL to discuss the latest advancements and innovations in healthcare.

We will focus our time helping organizations with their biggest challenges through speaking sessions, thought leadership, partner engagements, customer meetings, and booth tours. We will demonstrate how the unique capabilities of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare can help your organization deliver exceptional patient and member experiences, accelerate data-driven decision-making, support your healthcare workforce, and enhance collaboration across the care continuum

Engage with Microsoft at HIMSS23

Here are 8 HIMSS23 opportunities you should add to your plans:

1. Microsoft Booth #1201 (Hall A—South Building). Join us at the Microsoft Booth #1201, in Hall A of the South Building at McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, IL. The booth will feature space for exclusive one-to-one meetings, interactive customer demos and featured partner presentations. Meet with our industry partners: Andor Health, Avanade | Accenture, Cognizant | TriZetto, Efferent Health, HCLTech, SOPHiA GENETICS, Wipro, Teladoc Health, and Wolters Kluwer at our booth along with Startups partners: Anjuna Security, Pangaea Data, Recuro Health and Microsoft Systems Integrators partners: CDW, Kyndryl, and OST.

Now part of Microsoft, visit Nuance in our booth or in Nuance booth #912 (Hall A—South Building) to experience the patient journey in action through conversational AI, ambient intelligence, revenue integrity, radiology, and patient engagement solutions.

New this year, is our Learning Center—an in-booth theatre, featuring a compelling daily agenda of thought leadership and industry best practice stories. Stop by our booth, have a seat, and join your peers for these sessions.

2. Opening Keynote—Responsible AI: Prioritizing patient safety, privacy, and ethical considerations—Tuesday, April 18, 8:30 AM to 10:00 AM CT. The opening of the ChatGPT service launched AI into the public consciousness, and it has made a daily appearance in the news ever since. Long before public awareness began spiking, industry leaders focused on ethical AI, ensuring that AI tools are used responsibly, equitably, and safely. In this discussion, we will explore key issues necessary to create AI systems that benefit society and that are aligned with human values and ethical principles, including privacy, security, algorithmic bias, automated decision-making, and data governance.

3. Lunch and learn opportunities—space is limited, register today (lunch is provided).
Epic on Azure: Technical best practices and migration journey—Tuesday, April 18, 11:00 AM to 12:15 PM CT. Deploying Epic on Microsoft Azure provides a trusted path to healthcare-ready innovation in the cloud—bringing the intelligence, security, and reliability of Azure to your Epic applications. In this discussion, learn about considerations for migrating to the cloud, common migration journeys, the customer experience, and lessons learned while developing and leveraging the best practices and reference architecture for Epic on Azure. Register here today.

Cloud scale analytics driving operational excellence within federal healthcare—Tuesday April 18, 1:00 PM to 2:15 PM CT. Join us for a panel discussion on utilizing cloud-based analytics to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Federal Healthcare agencies. Featuring experts from the federal government and Microsoft, we will discuss the benefits of using data and cloud analytics, including cost savings, improved visibility, and enhanced patient outcomes. Register here today.

4. Powering the Future of Healthcare through Responsible AI—Tuesday, April 10, 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM CT. The growth of AI and machine learning in healthcare points to a future in which these technologies will consistently aid clinical decision-making, workforce support and planning, patient experience, and overall business strategy. Join our innovation discussion to explore new ways of using AI-powered solutions to improve health outcomes while reducing costs and removing inefficiencies across your healthcare organization.

5. Virtual first approach to augment consumer care delivery at home—Tuesday, April 18, 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM CT. With the recent COVID-19, we saw significant adoption of telehealth and other key consumer tools that provided access to healthcare and personal services in a simple, convenient, and on-demand way. This session will address how tech-enabled services and connected platforms continue to expand and play an important role in connecting consumers, especially those in underserved and rural communities, to their appropriate healthcare providers.

6. Transforming patient care through data and insights—Wednesday, April 19, 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM CT. We are standing at what could possibly be the next big quantum leap in technology industry—every aspect of the world will be impacted by how we will use and process data and AI. Healthcare is no exception—with generative AI becoming buzz words in the last few months, we know that this technology will have the potential to improve disease diagnosis, research, and clinical and operational insights in a way like never before. We will discuss what this really means for organizations wanting to benefit from and build on AI and machine learning models—what are the practical applications of this technology and what can AI applications and models do to help solve some of healthcare’s toughest problems. You will get an opportunity to hear from healthcare leaders on use cases of implementing cloud and AI to support clinical decision making and propelling medical science into the future.  

7. Nurses’ Evolving Role in Informatics During the Digital Transformation Era—Wednesday, April 19, 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM CT. There have been major technological shifts taking place in healthcare requiring tremendous amount of resource allocations towards technology, staffing, and regulatory compliance. One of the ongoing and most costly investments is human resources which has been especially challenging post COVID-19. Join us to discuss strategies that can empower nurses as they navigate through the rapid changes of high-tech healthcare. This session will address the current workforce crisis around employee retention and wellbeing, clinician burnout, career and workforce development, equity, inclusion, and other important topics.

8. Compliance with Cloud: Hybrid, Multi-Cloud: Making Shared Responsibilities Work—Thursday. April 20, 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM CT. Improving the patient experience requires protecting patient data with strong privacy, security, and compliance, and avoiding breaches, ransomware and other security incidents that erode patient trust. Join us to hear first-hand from the frontlines of healthcare how to make cloud computing work for healthcare, and how to make shared responsibilities for privacy, security, and compliance work in practice.

Next steps

We hope to see you at HIMSS23, visit us at Booth #1201 (Hall A—South Building) at McCormick Place Convention Center. Let’s discuss your challenges, goals, and how Microsoft can help.

• Register for HIMSS today
• Explore Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

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The post Microsoft at HIMSS23: Empower meaningful outcomes across the healthcare journey appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

In this difficult environment, the most successful healthcare organizations are the ones that are driving digital transformation and tapping into innovative healthcare technology solutions to improve patient care.

Watch the on-demand webinar, Improving Patient Experiences: Unlocking Data for Better Patient Outcomes, to find out what health technology solutions providers are using to uncover data insights and gain a competitive edge. The webinar will also share how healthcare organizations can empower care teams, enhance patient engagement, and raise the bar on health outcomes.

During this webinar, you’ll hear from industry experts as they share insights about how leading healthcare organizations are using trusted cloud and AI solutions to overcome obstacles and enable better outcomes. Plus, you’ll learn about the new realities facing healthcare organizations and discover ways to:

• Adapt to societal and technological disruptions that are shaping the future of healthcare.
• Tap into healthcare data and trusted AI solutions to address your greatest challenges through automation and better collaboration.
• Improve clinical and financial outcomes by accelerating digital transformation.
• Elevate patient care by uncovering valuable data insights.

Improving Patient Experiences: Unlocking Data for Better Paitent Outcomes

Discover the digital transformation differentiators creating a competitive advantage for healthcare providers.

Watch the webinar

What are your top five business objectives for 2023?

Most healthcare providers are striving to meet five key business objectives in 2023:

1. Elevate patient and consumer experiences.
2. Improve financial performance.
3. Improve operational efficiencies.
4. Enhance outreach and marketing effectiveness.
5. Become more data-centric.

Healthcare providers that are more advanced in healthcare data and digital transformation are more likely to accomplish these goals. These data-driven organizations are well-equipped to deal with labor shortages and cost issues. They also have more access to new tools like AI and machine learning, can pivot quickly in times of crisis, and enjoy better performance and financial metrics. This gives them a strong competitive advantage over other organizations.

Adapt and thrive with trusted health technology

Because health IT is perpetually in a state of flux, healthcare organizations need a flexible and scalable infrastructure that enables them to keep pace with ongoing industry changes. In the current landscape, healthcare leaders are looking for ways to maximize the value of their investments with healthcare technology that does more. Today’s leading healthcare organizations are staying ahead of the curve by using two powerful health technology solutions: AI and cloud platforms.

The healthcare providers that are best prepared for today’s data-driven world already are using the cloud to get healthcare data analytics and insights. Healthcare organizations have accumulated vast amounts of data in the form of clinical research, claims data, and diagnostic images. When organizations use AI to analyze this data and uncover insights, they can make more educated clinical decisions and improve patient experiences.

“As an organization, we deliver care, our product is care. Our product is not delivering IT assets or services, that’s just something we have to do. If I can improve my effectiveness, efficiency, and maintain—or even improve—my cost structure, then it would be a mistake for me not to deploy in the cloud.”—Chris Scott, Banner Health.

Build resilience and gain a competitive advantage with cloud solutions

Healthcare organizations that have moved to the cloud are enjoying the valuable benefits of digital transformation. For example, cloud platforms allow healthcare providers to:

• Simplify processes. Health organizations can more easily deploy new applications.
• Increase access. With cloud solutions, healthcare teams gain immediate access to feature updates and new capabilities.
• Move faster. Healthcare providers can quickly scale up new applications across the organization.
• Drive innovation. Cloud capabilities enable organizations to pivot quickly, respond to changing needs, and take advantage of new opportunities.

When adding and scaling new applications, healthcare organizations using a cloud platform realize time-to-value gains of 10 to 22 months—as compared to deploying solutions on-premises. When organizations enable more rapid innovation platforms and pivot to deliver new solutions and services, they often accelerate development timelines by 18 to 28 months. These gains translate into a significant competitive advantage over other organizations.

“The cloud gives you the ability to pivot quickly because you have things already there and you know the patterns of architecture needed to move. That flexibility really was evident during COVID-19 for a lot of organizations that had already gotten their feet wet with the cloud. The ones that had not are still struggling.”—Karl Hightower, Novant Health.

Get clear healthcare data insights with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

In today’s ever-shifting landscape, healthcare leaders are looking for ways to remain competitive, deliver better care, and innovate for the future. Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare provides trusted, integrated capabilities that make it easier to uncover healthcare data insights and improve patient care.

These capabilities also help healthcare providers empower health team collaboration, reduce clinician burnout, enhance patient engagement, and protect health information.

To explore more ways to enhance patient engagement and transform the healthcare journey, watch the on-demand webinar now: Improving Patient Experiences: Unlocking Data for Better Patient Outcomes.

The post Elevate patient experiences with healthcare data insights appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

The success of this evolution depended on the foresight of medical imaging leadership to make capital investments in powerful computing networks, which led to an unprecedented ability to share and ingest large imaging files across the healthcare enterprise to serve a growing digital-first clinical service. But while leading the digital transformation has led to tremendous advantages, newer challenges have emerged including ever-increasing imaging volumes with many different modalities, combinations, and sources of data, all of which challenge traditional health IT resources.

If history is any guide, we believe medical imaging will once again lead to another modern transformation, one that allows health systems to unlock the security, scalability, and elasticity of the cloud. As in other industries, migrating and integrating medical imaging workloads to the cloud, alongside clinical and other data, will achieve new levels of operational efficiency, break down data silos for advanced workflows and intelligent analytics, and finally, provide on-demand modern infrastructure to deliver AI and machine learning workloads that enable disease detection and improved precision care.¹

This year at RSNA 2022, Microsoft + Nuance are excited to engage in conversations around how cloud technology, AI, and machine learning will change the future of the medical imaging industry.

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Here are a few of the key highlights of Microsoft + Nuance at RSNA 2022:

1. Join us on the symposium stage

Join us on Monday, November 28, 2022, from 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM CT, in the South Building, Level 1, Room S101AB for a discussion on “From Discovery to Delivery: Integrating data with AI to bring precision therapies into practice” with Fredrick Gustavsson, Chief Technology Officer and VP of Product, Sectra; Dr. Matt Lungren, Chief Medical Information Officer, Nuance; Steven Borg, Senior Director, Health Data and AI, Microsoft Health and Life Sciences; and John Barto, Chief Digital Transformation Officer, Microsoft Health and Life Sciences. Hear their thoughts on how we are using AI to discover insights in patient specific data early in the care continuum and deliver those insights directly into the radiologist workflow for targeted diagnosis.

2. Build with us in hands-on workshops

We’re excited to host a series of hands-on workshops with subject matter experts throughout RSNA 2022, covering topics like advancing responsible AI, empowering analytics, and taking the first step to migrate to the cloud.

A journey of a thousand miles: Taking the first step to migrate to the cloud (without interrupting your current flow)

In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn that moving your data to the cloud doesn’t have to be daunting. You can start with a few simple additions to your current infrastructure and start seamlessly moving your data to the cloud. Register to join one of our three sessions—on November 27, November 28, or November 29.

Advancing responsible AI: Model building and deployment

Participants will gain behind-the-scenes access to the synergy between Microsoft and Nuance AI solutions. We will take attendees on an end-to-end journey from dataset curation, AI model building, checking the model for fairness and bias, model deployment, and post-deployment model monitoring. Register to join one of our four sessions—on November 27, November 28, November 29, or November 30.

Empower your analytics: Harnessing the power of AI to unlock meaning and deliver insights

In this workshop, you will discover how Nuance mPower Clinical Analytics and Microsoft Azure capabilities make it easy to extract, analyze, and report on your data, enabling improved outcomes, quality, and performance. Register to join one of our two sessions—on November 28 or November 29.

3. Join us in the Imaging AI in Practice booth

Learn more about AI in practice at the Imaging AI in Practice booth every afternoon from 1:00 to 5:00 PM on the half hour for a demo walkthrough. The Imaging AI in Practice (IAIP) demonstration is an interoperability demonstration to showcase new technologies and communication standards needed to integrate AI into the diagnostic radiology workflow. The demonstration follows a fictional patient through a real-world clinical scenario involving both emergent and long-term care.

4. Meet us at the Microsoft+ Nuance booth

Join us in booth #3300, where we will highlight Microsoft + Nuance products and synergy. Come engage with us—we would love to share insights, discuss best practices, and answer all your questions. Learn more by requesting a meeting or demo in the booth.

Next Steps

We look forward to sharing more about how the Microsoft + Nuance vision comes to life to reimagine the medical imaging world and improve patient care. For more information and to register for workshops and sessions, please visit our registration page.

¹Harnessing the outcomes-focused AI in radiology reporting: It all starts with data, Nuance.

The post Building the future of medical imaging at RSNA 2022 appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

At this year’s HLTH 2022 conference Microsoft + Nuance will join other industry innovators and thought leaders to consider how organizations are using digital technology to turn the corner in unprecedented times. We’re excited to share our latest release wave for Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, which helps support organizations navigating this changing environment. The solution showcases new tools to free up critical resources and support consumer-centric operating models that ease the burden on providers and help facilitate proactive healthcare.

Here are a few of the key highlights of Microsoft at HLTH 2022:

1. Microsoft in the arena stage

Join us on Tuesday, November 15, 2022, from 4:20 PM to 5:00 PM PST, for this 40-minute panel conversation with Hadas Bitran, Partner Group Manager, Health AI, Microsoft, panelist alongside Google and Salesforce, to hear her definition of disruption and further, if healthcare is even disrupt-able.

2. Meet with Microsoft

Connect with Microsoft at HLTH 2022. Listen to us on the Tech Talk stage at 10:30 AM and 10:45 AM PST on November 16, 2022. We will also be at Meeting Cube MC-467 (US Health & Life Science) and Meeting Cube MC-966 (Nuance) and would love to schedule time to strategize, share insights and best practices, and answer all your questions. 

3. Microsoft in the newsroom stage

For the first time at HLTH, Nuance will present how the Precision Imaging Network is driving better patient outcomes and business performance across the entire healthcare ecosystem leveraging an open enterprise AI platform. Join us on Monday, November 14, 2022, from 10:10 AM to 10:50 AM PST for a panel discussion led by Peter Durlach, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Nuance.

4. Engage with Partner Programs at HLTH

Patient engagement and experience have become an ever-pressing priority for healthcare stakeholders of all stripes following COVID-19. This event, on Sunday, November 13, 2022, from 9:30 AM to 1:00 PM PST, will explore how providers and payers are focusing on patient-centricity in the light of a pandemic that kept many people at home, as well as how they and others are working towards more equitable care for all. This partner-led session moderated by Jack Stockert, Managing Director of Health 2047, and speakers from Zebra Technologies, Nuance Communications, August Artists, and Intermountain Healthcare will discuss how the patient journey can be improved.

5. Meet with Microsoft for Startups

Increasingly, health tech startups are aligning themselves with Microsoft, bringing innovation, diverse perspectives, and digital transformation to the healthcare industry. We are honored that so many of the new generation of innovators trust Microsoft to be their platform partner. And we’re thrilled to offer the opportunity to set up meetings with the following health and life sciences innovators at HLTH: Anjuna, Bayesian Health, Cynerio, Hyro, Pangaea Data, Recuro Health, Sonavi Labs, and Vastmindz. Hear a five-minute quick pitch from each at the October webinar.

If you’re interested in meeting with health tech startup organizations, please email us at mfsgtm@microsoft.com to set up a one-to-one meeting, in Meeting Cube MC-1067.

Next Steps

Join us at HLTH 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada from November 13 to 16, 2022, and use the discount code “Microsoft150” to receive a $150 discount on the prevailing registration cost for the event. We are excited to share our vision for innovation around healthcare and encourage you to learn more at our meeting spaces for the US Health & Life Sciences (MC-467), Microsoft for Startups (MC-1067), and Nuance (MC-966). 

• Learn more about HLTH
• Microsoft for Startups

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

Deliver better experiences, insights, and care with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.

Learn more

The post Inspiring digital perseverance at HLTH 2022 appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Physician burnout isn’t just expensive—it’s also dangerous. Doctors experiencing burnout are twice as likely to be involved in patient safety incidents, including medication errors and substandard care. This, in turn, leads to a sharp decline in patient satisfaction.

Facing ever-increasing pressure to address clinician burnout, many healthcare organizations are turning to innovative AI solutions to automate tasks and reduce administrative burden. In the e-book, Breaking Down AI: Real Applications in Healthcare, discover how AI and advanced analytics offer new strategies for patient engagement and solutions to help combat physician burnout.

Breaking Down AI: Real Applications in Healthcare

Enhance patient engagement, empower health team collaboration, and improve clinical care with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.

Download the e-book

You’ll also find practical use cases for applying AI and data analytics to make healthcare more efficient, including how to:

• Share and analyze clinical data to deliver targeted health services and improve outcomes through predictive care.
• Use operational data to optimize your management of claims, staffing, and overall costs.
• Detect and prevent fraudulent claims and other abuses based on behavioral patterns.
• Deliver better experiences, insights, and care with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.

Combat clinician burnout with healthcare AI

Julias Bogdan, Vice President and General Manager of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Digital Health Advisory Team for North America, recently discussed how AI solutions can ease clinician burnout.³

“AI can help automate routine, repeatable tasks so you can deploy your human resources where they are most needed. That type of automation is the long-hanging fruit AI can provide to help address turn-over rates and help reduce burnout.“—Julias Bogdan, Vice President and General Manager, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

Bogdan added that when physicians get bogged down in tedious tasks and can no longer focus on direct patient care, they often consider leaving their current job to go work elsewhere. In turn, if patients don’t receive the level of care they’ve come to expect, they’ll also seek care somewhere else. This expectation puts even more strain on clinicians to deliver quality care.

Breaking Down AI: Real Applications in Healthcare illustrates how AI can help healthcare teams automatically capture documentation at the point of care, freeing clinicians to focus on their patients. AI can also help teams predict operational issues, track safety metrics, monitor equipment inventory, maintain the integrity of the supply chain, and identify opportunities to improve process efficiency.

However, it’s important for healthcare organizations to enable AI for everyone across the entire care process. Operational and clinical analytics solutions can help health teams improve the quality of care every step of the way, throughout a patient’s experience.

Clinical analytics solutions tap into data and analytics to improve clinical treatment processes and outcomes. For example, clinicians can pull insights from data to help identify at-risk patients and deliver the best treatments. Additionally, sophisticated analytics engines, which are enhanced through machine learning and AI, can provide evidence to help health teams make informed decisions. On the other hand, operational analytics focuses on the use of data and analytics to improve the efficiency of systems used to provide and manage care processes.

Discover strategies for patient engagement and better health outcomes

Not only does AI reduce administrative burden—but it also helps healthcare teams enhance patient engagement and deliver better care. While patients have always appreciated good bedside manners from doctors and nurses, in today’s era of near-instant gratification, people seeking healthcare now think like consumers. They expect the highest level of personalized care whenever they want it, wherever they are.

In an effort to enhance patient engagement, some healthcare organizations are deploying AI-powered health bots that offer patients personalized access to health-related information through a natural conversation experience. Created with built-in medical knowledge bases, triage protocols, and language models trained to understand clinical terminology, these bots trigger seamless handoff from a bot interaction to a doctor, nurse, or support agent. Not only does this improve patient experiences, but it also helps reduce physician burden.    

If healthcare organizations want to provide top-quality care and meet patient expectations, the use of AI-powered technologies is essential. However, healthcare leaders must find trustworthy, ethical AI partners who understand the complexities of HIPAA compliance, data protection, and privacy.

Build a resilient future with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

In a rapidly evolving industry, healthcare leaders are looking to maximize the value of their investments with technology that does more. In other words, they want to do more with less—more speed, more productivity, and more time to focus on what matters. That’s exactly what Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare delivers.

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare provides trusted, integrated capabilities that make it easier to enhance patient engagement, empower health team collaboration, and improve clinician experiences. These capabilities also give clinicians connected tools and help them adopt important healthcare data standards. With our acquisition of Nuance Communications in the Spring of 2022, Microsoft now delivers new ways to overcome your greatest healthcare challenges with trusted AI solutions.

With powerful AI backed by decades of domain expertise—combined with the scale, security, and power of the Microsoft Cloud—Nuance has an opportunity to put advanced AI solutions into the hands of professionals everywhere. Today, Nuance solutions are used by more than 55 percent of physicians and 75 percent of radiologists in the United States.

These innovative solutions can help drive better decisions, create more meaningful connections, and produce tangible outcomes. For instance, Nuance Dragon Medical One, the top-rated conversational workflow assistant and documentation companion, enables every clinician to automate the tasks that slow them down. Using just their voice, physicians can create documentation in all clinical settings with this solution. Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX) extends the power of Dragon Medical One to dramatically reduce clinicians’ administrative workloads and improve the quality of their documentation—which results in better patient experiences and outcomes.

“Nuance DAX is a prime example of how we are using innovation to deliver excellent patient experiences and improve provider satisfaction with technology that allows providers to focus on patient care.”—Craig Richardville, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Intermountain Healthcare.

By helping healthcare organizations improve their quality of care, we can help make physician and patient experiences more personal, more engaging, and most importantly, more accurate.

Learn more

To read stories from real-world customers and explore more ways to enhance patient engagement, reduce clinician burnout, and drive operational efficiency, get the e-book, Breaking Down AI: Real Applications in Healthcare.

¹ Half of health workers report burnout amid COVID-19 | American Medical Association (ama-assn.org)

² Doctor burnout costs health care system $4.6 billion a year, Harvard study says—Harvard Gazette

³ VIDEO: AI can help prevent clinician burnout (healthexec.com)

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