Health IT Vendor eClinicalWorks Announces Azure OpenAI EHR Integration

Health IT vendor eClinicalWorks has announced that it is integrating its EHR and practice management tools with ChatGPT, cognitive services, and machine learning models from Azure OpenAI Service.

eClinicalWorks recently invested $100 million in Microsoft Azure cloud services.

“We are thrilled to combine advances in generative AI models with eClinicalWorks’ solutions to bring responsible AI to healthcare,” Girish Navani, CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks, noted in a public statement. “We have been in the world of machine learning and data science for years, and our users have benefited from our AI-based tools, like eClinicalWorks Scribe.”

EHR integration of advanced AI technology, like ChatGPT, is set to enhance the end-user experience by allowing clinicians to ask the EHR questions in natural language to gather patient information.

Additional new functionality includes cognitive service integration in the document management system. This integration is set to automate administrative tasks like document identification, auto-assignment, and document routing.

Further, the new eClinicalWorks EHR copilot tool aims to help summarize patient-provider interactions to mitigate administrative burdens and clinician burnout.

The growth of AI and ChatGPT is leading to transformations in sectors such as science, business, and healthcare, according to a report from Accenture that found that 42 percent of companies expressed interest in making a large ChatGPT investment in 2023.

EHR vendor Epic also recently announced an Azure OpenAI Service EHR integration to streamline clinical workflows.

The generative AI-powered solutions within the Epic EHR are expected to help increase productivity, enhance patient care delivery, and improve health system financial integrity.

UC San Diego Health, UW Health in Madison, Wisconsin, and Stanford Health Care are among the first healthcare organizations implementing Epic tools to draft message responses automatically.

“A good use of technology simplifies things related to workforce and workflow,” Chero Goswami, chief information officer at UW Health, said in a press release. “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.”