One Year of DAX Copilot: Enhancing Clinician-Patient Relationships

In 2012, a child’s drawing depicting her visit to a doctor was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The colorful image shows the girl sitting on the exam table with her mother and siblings. However, the most striking part of the drawing for healthcare professionals is the doctor, who is depicted sitting at his desk, typing on a computer with his back to the patient. This image was featured alongside an article titled "The Cost of Technology," highlighting the unintended consequences of technological advancements in healthcare. While new tools have been developed to assist physicians and improve efficiency, they can sometimes create a barrier between the clinician and the patient. For instance, a 2023 Medscape survey found that approximately 53% of physicians reported feeling burned out, and 23% felt depressed. Long working hours, bureaucratic demands, and the loss of work-life balance due to administrative tasks are significant contributing factors. Our mission has always been to help clinicians refocus their attention on patient care by providing the necessary support.

Fast forward to today, and we’ve made significant strides in achieving this goal. We pioneered the ambient technology category and introduced DAX Copilot, the first generative AI voice-enabled solution. Launched a year ago, DAX Copilot has gained substantial traction. It is built on a robust and flexible platform that leverages the existing investments of health systems in the Dragon Medical solutions, which are used by over 600,000 clinicians worldwide.

DAX Copilot integrates conversational and ambient AI with generative AI to automatically convert multiparty conversations into specialty-specific, standardized draft clinical summaries. These summaries are then integrated into existing workflows. DAX Copilot was the first ambient solution to be incorporated into the Epic electronic health record (EHR) workflow, enabling clinicians to document patient visits seamlessly within the EHR. Over 400 organizations across the United States have already embraced its revolutionary capabilities, significantly reducing administrative tasks and easing clinicians’ documentation burdens.

This transformative year has demonstrated how we are helping healthcare teams today and bringing joy back to practicing medicine for thousands of clinicians.

Improving Access to Care — and Enhancing Documentation Quality

DAX Copilot is assisting Northwestern Medicine in Chicago in improving patient access to care. Physicians using the solution in at least 50% of patient encounters can see an average of 11.3 additional patients per month. Additionally, DAX Copilot users at Northwestern Medicine report spending an average of 24% less time on notes and a 17% reduction in "pajama time," referring to working on administrative tasks late into the night.

Dr. Gaurava Agarwal, the Chief Wellness Executive at Northwestern Medicine, stated, "Northwestern Medicine is committed to providing a superior work environment that promotes well-being. Implementing DAX Copilot will allow our physicians to spend more quality time with our patients, focusing on their needs rather than on paperwork and data entry."

Overlake Medical Center & Clinics in Bellevue, Washington, deployed DAX Copilot to help reduce after-hours documentation time and equip its clinicians with tools to manage escalating demands. A pilot involving 30 Overlake clinicians showed a significant reduction in time spent on notes outside of scheduled hours. Users also reported other important benefits: 81% said DAX Copilot had reduced their cognitive burden, and 77% noted an improvement in the quality of their documentation.

At Atrium Health, Dr. Matthew Anderson, Senior Medical Director of Primary Care, remarked, "DAX Copilot is enabling a better clinician experience. Most of our surveyed users report a positive impact on their day-to-day schedule, being able to increase the number of patients they see and even spending more time with them."

Enhancing Clinician Well-being

Atrium Health isn’t the only institution finding that the time saved on documentation with DAX Copilot positively impacts clinicians’ quality of life. Dr. Christy Chan, a family medicine physician at Overlake, shared, "I finally have weekends back. I used to always worry about having something to do—getting back onto the EMR, logging back in—but now I actually have some weekends free."

Similarly, clinicians at Novant Health are experiencing the benefits of DAX Copilot. Dr. Aram Alexanian, a family physician at Novant Health, commented, "DAX Copilot has done amazing things for the physicians and clinicians currently using it. When you hear comments like ‘I am now able to do things with my daughter in the evenings and weekends that I couldn’t do before,’ nothing is more satisfying than knowing the impact DAX is having on our clinicians."

DAX Copilot can accurately identify different voices in the room during pediatric visits, differentiating between parents and children to accurately capture the patient exam note for the physician to review and approve.

Community Health Network places a significant focus on clinician well-being, and implementing DAX Copilot has had a major impact on clinicians’ ability to close notes before leaving for the day. Dr. Patrick McGill, Chief Transformation Officer for Community Health Network, stated, "Since implementing DAX Copilot, I have not left the clinic with an open note. We have seen improved access, increased patient numbers, but overall, it’s the clinician satisfaction that stands out. In one word, DAX Copilot is transformative. It transforms how we deliver care and document it, and it also transforms the patient experience."

Dr. Anita M. Kelsey from Duke Health shared her experience, saying, "DAX Copilot has made my professional life easier. My patients have also benefited from my using Nuance DAX during our appointments. I can be right there with the patient and not furiously writing notes. I cannot thank you enough."

Transforming the Patient Experience

Dr. Dominick Lanzo, an orthopedic surgeon at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, said, "Introducing the DAX Copilot program completely transformed the patient experience. It’s incredibly accurate regarding the history of present illness and the physical exam. It’s made my practice much more efficient. I can see more patients, my notes are more accurate, and they’re done in a timely fashion by the end of the afternoon."

Dr. Alison Pomykala, an internal medicine specialist at Baptist Medical Group, finds the integration of DAX Copilot with the Epic EHR particularly valuable. She remarked, "The thing I like most about DAX Copilot embedded in the Epic workflow is that I can focus more on the patient and spend less time typing on the computer in the exam room. The interface with Epic is wonderful. Seeing the notes come up in real-time on the Epic system has been great. It helps with generating notes quickly for referrals, insurance pre-certifications, imaging studies, or having a complete note ready for a patient being sent to the hospital."

Dr. Anthony Mazzarelli, Co-President and CEO at Cooper University Health Care, stated, "Integrating DAX Copilot has revolutionized patient care at our academic health system. By automating clinical documentation through ambient voice technology, we have significantly reduced administrative workloads. This allows our physicians to focus on real-time patient interactions, leading to better care outcomes and increased job satisfaction. DAX Copilot has not only improved efficiency but has also empowered our team to spend more time where it matters most—caring for patients."

It’s a privilege to witness this industry-leading solution making a meaningful difference for clinicians already on board. However, the work never stops. The Microsoft healthcare team is committed to continuing to solve some of the industry’s most complex challenges, harnessing the power and potential of AI. We will continue to lead in innovation, collaborating across our ecosystem of customers, partners, and Microsoft researchers to bring real impact to clinical settings.

DAX Copilot is an innovative solution that transcends documentation, offering unique features such as orders, problem-based charting, and pre-charting capabilities. Recent updates to DAX Copilot include a robust set of features, such as the ability to customize documentation style and formatting, automatically create referral letters, diagnostic evidence, after-visit summaries, and encounter summaries. The solution also offers AI coaching to help users improve the quality and completeness of their notes. Additionally, the new Summarized Evidence capability provides a comprehensive and sophisticated approach that helps clinicians validate and trust the note output by combining insights that go beyond evidence linking.

Importantly, when creating technologies that can change the world, Microsoft believes organizations need to ensure that the technology is used responsibly. Microsoft is committed to creating responsible AI by design, guided by core principles: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability.

DAX Copilot is helping restore the human connection at the heart of medicine. We are excited to drive this solution forward and expand its reach to more clinicians in the coming year and beyond. Today, the solution can be used across various specialties, including ambulatory, in-office primary care, urgent care, telehealth, and emergency medicine. We are also scaling the solution’s availability and capabilities to more care settings, such as nursing, and different geographies.

If you’d like to learn how DAX Copilot can help transform healthcare at your organization, please visit the DAX Copilot website.

Tags: AI, Copilot, Dax Copilot, Dragon Medical Solutions, Generative AI, Microsoft Partners, Responsible AI

For more Information, Refer to this article.