Microsoft Does A 'First', Launches Dragon Copilot Voice-Enabled AI Assistant For Clinicians

Microsoft Dragon Copilot, a clinical AI assistant, has been launched on Monday, according to a post from the company's blog. It is meant to provide assistance to facilitate speedier and more efficient administrative functions such as documentation, providing medical information on demand and automating tasks for clinicians.

The AI tool's artificial intelligence capabilities were developed with the intention of reducing administrative burden in the healthcare sector in order to free up time and energy, which can then be devoted to improved patient care, according to Joe Petro, corporate vice president of Microsoft Health and Life Sciences Solutions and Platforms.

“With the launch of our new Dragon Copilot, we are introducing the first unified voice AI experience to the market.” Petro said.

The Dragon Copilot AI, combines the functions of the 'Dragon Medical One', a cloud-based speech recognition application that can help clinicians save medical records, such a notes on patients by dictating them with 'Dragon Ambient eXperience', that can record conversations between patients and clinicians in order to create medical summaries.

Clinicians who work in ambulance-related, inpatient and emergency departments and other healthcare departments would be able to use the AI to document care, navigate electronic health record workflows, and perform other administrative tasks according to Microsoft.

It's main features include a multilanguage ambient note creation system, automated tasks and multilanguage support, a search feature for clinicians to access general-purpose medical information from "trusted" content sources and having a centralised workspace for important administrative tasks like conversational orders, note and clinical evidence summaries, referral letters, and after-visit summaries

Other features inlcude personalized style and formatting, natural language dictation capabilities, speech memos, editing, customized texts, templates, AI prompts, and more.

Microsoft has also reported that it has a network of "healthcare partners" consisting of EHR providers, independent software vendors, system integrators and cloud service providers in order to give clinicians "new solutions and integrated offerings".

The AI will be generally available in the U.S. and Canada in May, followed by the U.K., Germany, France and the Netherlands, according to the post.

Microsoft also cited statistics related to burnout in clinicians and credited technology enhancement with its reduction. It also stated that their product would help alleviate some of the work stress and reduce the desire for them leave their jobs, citing surveys they conducted on medical professionals who used their AI.