The nursing workflow requires a tailored approach, as any solutions designed for nurses must seamlessly integrate into their existing processes and workflows. We’ve strategically placed nurse perspectives at the forefront of our ongoing initiative, crafting an innovative solution that harmonizes with daily nursing routines. Now, this intuitive tool is readily accessible to nurses across multiple healthcare provider networks.
The escalating pressure, overwhelming charting requirements, and cumbersome work processes have converged to exhaust nurses, foster feelings of burnout, and drive unprecedented turnover rates.
To create a tangible impact for patients and healthcare professionals alike, it’s imperative that innovation permeates every stage of the care pathway – with the nursing process being no exception to this rule. Given that nurses form the largest workforce in healthcare, they are undoubtedly the most omnipresent professionals in this sector.
By the end of the year, a staggering 32% of nurses in the United States intend to leave their positions, citing burnout and frustration as major factors driving their decision.1 As the World Health Organization forecasts a shortage of approximately 4.5 million nurses by 2030,2 The pressing need to expedite knowledge transfer and support the nursing profession has never been more pronounced.
Nursing data hub
Enhance Nurse Documentation of Patient Care
Listening to nurses’ voices
Those intimately familiar with the complexities and obstacles inherent to nursing workflows are undoubtedly the professionals who dedicate themselves to this craft daily. For a progressive solution to have lasting impact, it is essential that nurses and their leadership serve as the driving force behind the process, seamlessly guiding its development from conception to successful implementation, and fostering widespread acceptance among the healthcare team.
As Leanna Arnold, Director of Nursing Informatics at Northwestern Medicine, notes:
Nurses are expected to remain at their designated workstation, typically referred to as the nurse’s station or desk. To truly empower knowledge-sharing teams, you can’t just provide ready-made solutions. To effectively implement a new electronic health record system, you must immerse yourself in the intricate processes and gain insight into how nurses operate.
Leanna Arnold, Director of Nursing Informatics at Northwestern Medicine
According to Terry McDonnell, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Governance Officer at Duke Health, ensuring technology effectiveness for nurses hinges on one crucial element: actively involving them in the design process.
“Empowering nurses to find fulfillment by making them integral to the solution is crucial.” It’s unrealistic to assume they’ll passively accept a solution merely because we deem it the correct one. According to Tammy Daniel, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, it is crucial to partner with nurses, providing them a sense of autonomy while ensuring they feel empowered to develop their skills by leveraging available technology.
AI within the nursing workflow
Artificial intelligence is rapidly advancing, underscoring the need to leverage its capabilities in nursing workflows. To mitigate the risks of burnout, nurses must effectively manage their workload, allowing them to channel their energy into delivering exceptional patient care.
“Emphasizing the importance of artificial intelligence knowledge among nursing professionals, Arnold stresses its critical value.” As professionals suggest, incorporating AI is not intended to replace human capabilities entirely, but rather augment them by automating tasks that can efficiently be handled by machines.
Microsoft is committed to equipping professionals with innovative tools that unlock the power of generative AI. Our unwavering commitment to innovation is reflected in our latest investment in tailored solutions that empower businesses to seamlessly integrate and harness the power of AI technologies across various industries. As we harness the innovative potential of AI in healthcare, we’re poised to revolutionize the industry’s trajectory, propelling it toward a groundbreaking future.
What can we build for our nursing professionals?
While physicians and nurses collaborate diligently to manage patient care, the daily routines of nurses and doctors often diverge significantly, with nursing documentation workflows also operating independently. Nurses move fluidly throughout their shifts, navigating between patient rooms with ease and efficiency as they attend to the needs of their patients. Healthcare professionals engage in bedside conversations, meticulously recording patient information in standardized formats, such as flowsheets.
Microsoft has embarked on a multi-year odyssey to tackle the challenges of nursing documentation and complex workflows, leveraging advanced AI capabilities to deliver tailored solutions that have been successfully deployed at multiple client sites.
We collected insights from numerous frontline nurses, nurse managers, and executives. We’ve accompanied our team of nurses on long shifts, observing the intricacies of their work to identify areas where workflow encounters resistance.
Five years ago, we pioneered the ambient class to facilitate seamless doctor documentation. Today, our AI-powered capabilities have far-reaching implications, as numerous organizations leverage our innovative workflows to streamline scientific operations. We’re building upon that success to redefine the standard for AI in nursing.
As we strive to reimagine care for complex patients, we must acknowledge that our approach to documentation must also evolve, shifting from a focus on administrative tasks to a more personalized, patient-centered approach that prioritizes the value of bedside nursing and the human connection it fosters. Having witnessed Microsoft’s successful collaboration with suppliers, I had been thoroughly enthused to be selected among a select group of pilot websites tasked with bringing their innovative roadmap to life.
Gretchen Brown, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer at Stanford Health Care
We are partnering with leading healthcare organizations – Advocate Health, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Mercy, NYU Langone Health, Stanford Health Care, and Tampa General Hospital – to develop an AI solution that streamlines nursing documentation by automating flowsheets through ambient technology, allowing nurses to devote less time to paperwork and more to patient care. Many of these organizations have already piloted a preview version as we refine the capabilities before making them widely available.
With seamless integration of our Dragon Medical observations, digitally enabled healthcare records, and collaborative workflows, our preliminary findings in this area are founded on a robust strategic partnership and continuous improvement initiatives with Epic Systems.
As healthcare systems continue to evolve, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in nursing practices has become increasingly crucial. With its vast capabilities, AI has the potential to revolutionize the way nurses work, enhancing patient care and improving overall outcomes.
By leveraging AI-powered tools, nurses can streamline clinical workflows, reducing administrative burdens and freeing up more time for hands-on patient care. This includes tasks such as automating routine documentation, analyzing patient data, and predicting treatment options based on historical trends.
Moreover, AI-driven chatbots can provide patients with personalized health advice, medication reminders, and emotional support, thereby addressing the growing demand for patient-centric care.
Nursing is poised on the cusp of a vital revolution. As we witness the rapid acceleration of digital nursing, healthcare organizations are increasingly investing in innovative wellness strategies. We aim to rapidly elevate documentation standards and ultimately revolutionize nursing expertise, transforming it into an intuitive and efficient process where non-patient care tasks are streamlined through cutting-edge technologies, freeing nurses to focus on the essential human connection with patients.
As interactions unfold between nursing leaders and industry innovators, it is clear that the future will be revolutionized. Together, we possess the vision and determination to harness these groundbreaking applied sciences against some of the most pressing healthcare challenges, for the benefit of the very people who dedicate their lives to caring for others: our esteemed nurses.
1, McKinsey, 2022.
2The World Health Organization, 2024.
As VP, Portfolio Evolution & Incubation, Well being & Life Sciences at Microsoft, Mary Varghese Presti leads the event of generative AI-based workflows for care crew members, together with nurses. As a seasoned executive with more than two decades of experience driving growth and transformation in the healthcare technology and life sciences sectors, Mary has established herself as a respected authority on healthcare know-how governance. As Mary launched her career in pediatric nursing at Johns Hopkins, she drew upon the scientific foundation gained there to inform her subsequent forays into techniques, biopharmaceuticals, and knowledge sharing. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master’s degree in Healthcare Policy from Johns Hopkins University.
