Microsoft and Epic have expanded their partnership to integrate Azure OpenAI Service with Epic EHR, allowing for the use of AI-powered solutions to streamline clinical workflows. Healthcare providers such as UC San Diego Health, UW Health in Madison, and Stanford Health Care have already begun implementing these tools to improve patient care delivery and increase productivity. This collaboration aims to help healthcare providers deliver significant clinical and business outcomes by leveraging the power of Microsoft Cloud and Epic.
Microsoft and EHR vendor Epic has announced a new partnership that will integrate the Azure OpenAI Service with Epic EHR to streamline clinical workflows. The announcement builds upon the existing partnership between Microsoft and Epic, which allows healthcare organizations to run Epic environments on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The new generative AI-powered solutions within the Epic EHR are expected to help increase productivity, enhance patient care delivery, and improve the health system’s financial integrity.
According to the announcement, several healthcare organizations, including UC San Diego Health, UW Health in Madison, Wisconsin, and Stanford Health Care, are among the first to implement the new AI-powered tools. The tools will help draft message responses automatically, simplifying the process of generating responses for healthcare providers. The AI-powered tools are expected to increase productivity for healthcare providers and allow them to focus on clinical duties that require their attention.
Chero Goswami, Chief Information Officer at UW Health, commented on the partnership, saying, “A good use of technology simplifies things related to the workforce and workflow.” Integrating generative AI into some of our daily workflows will increase productivity for many of our providers, allowing them to focus on the clinical duties that truly require their attention.
Another AI tool will bring natural language queries and interactive data analysis to Epic’s self-service reporting tool, SlicerDicer, to help leaders conversationally explore data. The tool will make it easier for healthcare organizations to identify operational improvements, reduce costs, and find answers to questions locally and in a broader context.
Seth Hain, Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Epic, said, “Our exploration of OpenAI’s GPT-4 has shown the potential to increase the power and accessibility of self-service reporting through SlicerDicer, making it easier for healthcare organizations to identify operational improvements, including ways to reduce costs, and to find answers to questions locally and in a broader context.”
Industry experts have highlighted the urgent need for health systems and hospitals to address pressures on costs and margins. About half of the hospitals nationwide finished 2022 with negative margins, as workforce shortages, increased labor expenses, and supply disruptions caused costs to outpace revenue increases.
According to Eric Boyd, Corporate Vice President of AI Platform at Microsoft, “The urgent and critical challenges facing healthcare systems and their providers demand a comprehensive approach combining Azure OpenAI Service with Epic’s industry-leading technology.” Our expanded partnership builds on a long history of collaboration between Microsoft, Nuance, and Epic, including our work to help healthcare organizations migrate their Epic environments to Azure. Together, we can help providers deliver significant clinical and business outcomes by leveraging the power of the Microsoft Cloud and Epic.”
The Microsoft and Epic partnership aims to address the critical challenges facing healthcare systems and their providers. By combining the Azure OpenAI Service with Epic’s industry-leading technology, healthcare providers will be able to streamline clinical workflows and improve the quality of care they deliver to patients. As the healthcare industry continues to evolve, partnerships like this will be crucial to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare delivery.
