Nurses at UW Health have been early adopters of generative AI in Epic, using it to automatically draft responses to patient messages. Their hands-on experience with this technology—known as Art, or augmented response technology—has been crucial. "Whether it's telephone calls or MyChart messages, a lot of that interaction is coming through the nurse, so it's just really cool that this is a tool that we can utilize to help with everyday work that we're doing," said Amanda Weber, registered nurse clinical supervisor at UW Health. "We have the option to provide direct feedback on what worked and what didn't work with particular responses that were generated. Any improvements or recommendations that we have, we can input that right then and there." We appreciate you and your close collaboration, UW nurses!
To improve access to urgent care, Bryan Health began offering 24/7 telehealth appointments to patients across Nebraska through a partnership with KeyCare, a national network of virtual care providers. Bryan has since seen an 8% increase in virtual visits and a 99% patient satisfaction rate for virtual visits. Bryan and KeyCare collaborate through Epic’s Telehealth Anywhere network, which allows partner organizations to provide virtual care and share relevant information through Epic. Patients can request and complete video visits right from their MyChart accounts, and KeyCare providers can access their patients’ relevant clinical information just as it appears to providers at Bryan. When a virtual visit is complete, the documentation flows right into Epic so that Bryan’s providers can follow up with their patients. Read more by clicking on the link!
To help patients and keep schedules full, The MetroHealth System (Cleveland, OH) uses AI in Epic to identify patients at risk of missing upcoming appointments. Staff call each at-risk patient individually to confirm their appointments or offer options to reschedule. While personalized calls take a bit more work than automated outreach, MetroHealth considers the juice worth the squeeze. Among an initial study group, their approach drove a 9.4% decrease in missed appointments, with the most dramatic result being a 15.0% decrease among Black patients. From the article: “Barriers that affect patients’ ability to make it to healthcare appointments, including limited transportation and work or childcare conflicts, are known to affect non-White patients and patients who are younger disproportionately. Efforts to decrease no-shows can make existing disparities worse if they don’t adequately account for these patient populations.”
Our new, open-source AI Trust and Assurance Suite gives organizations the ability to deploy AI with confidence, monitor it continuously, and help ensure that it works for all patients. The tool is available for free on GitHub so that organizations can use the platform to monitor all of their AI tools—including custom models and those developed by other vendors. Corey Miller, an R&D leader at Epic, caught up with Healthcare IT News to provide a deeper dive on the Trust and Assurance Suite. Mark Sendak (population health and data science lead at Duke Institute for Health Innovation) and Brian Patterson (UW Health’s medical informatics director for predictive analytics and AI) join to share how their institutions have worked with us to test the suite and develop a standardized language for AI validation.
Everyone loves campus when spring’s in bloom – including this duo, who we found relaxing on a patio.
Our hometown is great for many reasons. Count ultimate frisbee among them. Ultimate has thrived in Madison since the early 90’s, and—as we now know—we’ve played a small role in its growth 😊 “Evidently, Epic brings liberal arts-type people who also play frisbee,” said Avery Johnson, an assistant coach of the men’s team at UW-Madison. “They bring a lot of other knowledge that maybe wasn’t here before, a lot of different ways of looking at systems and how you play. I think it really helps us grow.” PS – rumor has it that STEM students like frisbee too 😉
Our friends at Rochester Regional Health provide a great example of how nursing informatics teams can help their colleagues embrace new technology. RRH's nurse informaticists recently helped implement Rover, Epic's mobile app for nurses, so that nurses can complete their work on the go, without mobile workstations or trips to a centrally located computer. “Previously, when they would have to go back to a computer to document everything they just did, they would break out their piece of paper that they wrote all their stuff on and it could take about an hour,” said Joe Collins, RN, MBA, nurse informaticist at RRH. “With Rover, we have seen a decrease all the way down to five to six minutes.” Congrats, folks! Read more below:
For two weeks, the little town of Verona, Wisconsin had thousands more Xperts running around than usual. Congratulations to everyone who helped make this year’s XGM great! We found your thoughtful presentations and enthusiasm about healthcare electrifying. We’re still wired.
Providing equitable healthcare starts with identifying each patients’ barriers to care. Houston Methodist increased screening for social drivers of health from less than 1% to 37% of patients. To turn that information into actionable insights, Houston Methodist identified community-based organizations (CBOs) whose services aligned with patients’ most common needs, including the Houston Food Bank, The Council on Recovery, and the Houston Women’s Shelter. Houston Methodist gave these CBOs access to Epic’s Healthy Planet Link, a portal that offers secure access to select patient information, so that users at both ends can see which services have been requested and provided. This makes the referral process smoother for clinicians because they don’t need to worry about navigating an unfamiliar interface or submitting referrals on paper—the whole workflow takes place in Epic. Read more at the link below. Credit: Photo by Brandon Price, Mural by Gonzo247
When the snow melts away, it can feel like a new dawn here on campus. Happy spring, everyone. Even if it reached us a month late 😉
