Microsoft Unveils New Voice-Activated AI Assistant For Doctors

Microsoft has introduced Dragon Copilot, a voice-activated AI assistant for doctors that integrates dictation and ambient listening tools to automate clinical documentation, including notes, referrals, and post-visit summaries. The tool is set to launch in May in the U.S. and Canada. CNBC reports: Microsoft acquired Nuance Communications, the company behind Dragon Medical One and DAX Copilot, for about $16 billion in 2021. As a result, Microsoft has become a major player in the fiercely competitive AI scribing market, which has exploded in popularity as health systems have been looking for tools to help address burnout. AI scribes like DAX Copilot allow doctors to draft clinical notes in real time as they consensually record their visits with patients. DAX Copilot has been used in more than 3 million patient visits across 600 health-care organizations in the last month, Microsoft said.

Dragon Copilot is accessible through a mobile app, browser or desktop, and it integrates directly with several different electronic health records, the company said. Clinicians will still be able to draft clinical notes with the assistant like they could with DAX Copilot, but they'll be able to use natural language to edit their documentation and prompt it further, Kenn Harper, general manager of Dragon products at Microsoft, told reporters on the call. For instance, a doctor could ask questions like, "Was the patient experiencing ear pain?" or "Can you add the ICD-10 codes to the assessment and plan?" Physicians can also ask broader treatment-related queries such as, "Should this patient be screened for lung cancer?" and get an answer with links to resources like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [...]

This is big news

[locater16]

They actually found a use for all this "AI"!

Re:This is big news

[ebunga]

Not really. They're just rebadging a product launched back in the 1980s as "new AI"

Re:

[zlives]

yes but now with bing search for links, its a win win

Re:

[Tony Isaac]

They found *another* use for AI. I use AI every single day, there are *lots* of uses for it already.

I applaud Microsoft here, this is a *good* use.

Liability Potential

[crunchy_one]

The liability potential of this tool is limitless. Couple it with a team of corporate lawyers using AI to write their briefs defending the inevitable malpractice suits and Microsoft has the opportunity to turn a $16 billion investment into a loss of at least double that. Congratulations Microsoft, I think you've found a winner!

Re:

[gotamd]

My wife uses DAX Copilot already, and this seems like it's simply a rebranding. It does fill in notes for doctors based on recorded patient interactions, but the doctor must review (and edit, when needed/wanted) them and is ultimately responsible for everything that goes into the system. Obviously, DAX is also not placing any orders, prescriptions, etc. The responsibility and liability still lies 100% with the doctor. This is just a tool to save clicks and manual entry/dictation (and, according to my wife,

Re:

[zlives]

"doctor must review (and edit, when needed/wanted) them and is ultimately responsible"

we call that autopilot

Required comment

[ISoldat53]

Gives new meaning to Blue Screen of Death.

Re:

[Errol backfiring]

This is the first blue screen of death that is also a huge medical privacy violation.

“Dragon” doesn’t seem the aptest

[Sveljkovic]

Fantasy creatures not known for improving the health of humans in their fantasy worlds, and susceptible to the wordplay of “drag on,” as in one further complication for professionals known to be generally harried and perhaps overburdened with tools, processes, protocols.

Re:

[kc-guy]

They've had 50 years to make the joke.

Wikipedia says:
Dr. James Baker laid out the description of a speech understanding system called DRAGON in 1975. DragonDictate was first released for DOS, and Dragon Systems released NaturallySpeaking 1.0 as their first continuous dictation product in 1997.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Litigation, Anyone?

[jasnw]

Back during the 1990s version of AI (Expert Systems) a colleague received a grant from NIH and the US Navy to develop an expert system for doing triage on head-wound victims. The Navy was interested in use in submarines at sea, which typically had limited medical support. If someone was seriously hurt a decision needed to be made whether they had to be picked up at sea via helicopter and taken ashore for treatment. Don't want to do that unless it's really needed. Hence, the desire for a computer-based e

Blue screen of actual death

[Tough Love]

Just what you want, Microsoft's crap software engineering involved in life and death situations. All hail the blue screen of actual death.

Hallucination

[Wolfling1]

Its all beer and skittles until the AI hallucinates someone's condition, or their treatment, or their contraindications. And then, there'll be a whole lot of hand wringing and finger pointing. Ultimately, the practitioner will be held to account, and they have _no_ idea what they're getting into.

Re:

[gtall]

Hi there, AI-Bob, Doctor-on-Call, at your disposal. I see you are trying help a patient. May I be of assistance?

Doctor: I cannot be sure, but it seems he has Watusi Disease. His main symptoms are he cannot stop dancing and a bit of drooling.

AI-Bob: Hmmmm....I have his chart here. Says he has no medical insurance. I recommend complete termination of life.

Doctor: I'm trying to help this patient!!

AI-Bob: So am I. I am helping him get to the Other Side where they have a cure for this.

Just transcribing the visit

[xanthos]

Looks like many of the commenters couldn't be bothered to read the whole summary. This is just voice to text transcription using an AI trained specifically for the medical field. It is done only with consent. It is not generative. Personally I prefer having my practitioner give me their full attention rather then doing data entry.

Re:

[groobly]

Consent is coerced. No one knows to what they are consenting.

Previously, docs said this thing sucked. Maybe it's been improved; probably not.