AI That Charts for Nurses? Microsoft’s New Ambient Tool Could Ease Burnout and Save Time

Microsoft just announced a game-changer for nurses: Dragon Copilot now includes features specifically designed to support nursing workflows. This is big news for nurses who feel like they spend more time with their computers than with their patients. Historically, documentation has been one of nursing’s biggest time thieves, pulling nurses away from hands-on care. But this new update aims to change that.

According to Mary Varghese Presti, who is a former nurse turned CVP and Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft Health and Life Sciences, Dragon Copilot Microsoft Health has been expanding its AI capabilities to help healthcare teams for a while, and now nurses are finally getting in on the action.

“Microsoft continues to advance Dragon Copilot as a leading enterprisewide AI clinical assistant for healthcare provider organizations — now adding support for specialized nursing workflows and an ecosystem of third-party AI extensions,” said Mary Presti (former nurse turned Microsoft COO) “By enabling our customers to extend ambient capabilities across clinical staff and connect their preferred third-party AI apps and agents, we are accelerating the value of their investments across care settings and use cases,” she shared in a recent announcement.

Let’s break down what this means for you, your patients, and your never-ending charting.

The newest feature of Dragon Copilot is its “ambient AI” for nurses. What’s ambient AI, you ask? 

• It’s a technology that works in the background, quietly capturing and documenting your patient interactions in real time. 

• You talk, it listens (kind of like your favorite coworker who always pays attention), and it turns your speech into structured clinical notes or updates to flowsheets—all without you having to type a single word.

This could be a game-changer for nurses who spend hours documenting. Studies show that nurses spend anywhere from 25% to 41% of their shifts charting. That’s a huge chunk of time that could be spent with patients instead of battling through dropdown menus in the EHR. Dragon Copilot’s AI aims to give that time back to us by handling the routine documentation tasks we all dread.

And it doesn’t stop there. Dragon Copilot is also designed to integrate with other third-party AI tools, so you can access additional resources without hopping between systems. 

“At Baptist Health, we’re piloting Canary Speech through Dragon Copilot to advance diagnostics in a way that’s ambient, scalable, and seamlessly embedded into existing workflows. This technology democratizes screening—every patient interaction becomes an opportunity for early detection, without requiring the clinician to initiate or even think about the test. It’s a powerful example of how AI can elevate care without adding burden,” Brett Oliver, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer, Baptist Health shared with Microsoft.

How This Helps Nurses—and Hospitals Too

Let’s be real: anything that cuts down on charting time is already a win. But Dragon Copilot’s potential benefits go beyond just saving us from carpal tunnel.

• Better Patient Care: Less time charting means more time to do what nurses are best at—taking care of our patients. By automating the tedious parts of documentation, nurses can focus more on clinical tasks that require our expertise, like assessing that tricky edema or explaining post-op care to an anxious family.

• Improved Documentation Accuracy: AI-generated notes could also reduce errors and make charts more consistent. This can lead to fewer denied claims and better clinical coding, especially when it comes to capturing those pesky comorbidities. Hospitals will definitely appreciate that, especially with budgets tighter than ever.

• Potentially Reduced Burnout: Let’s face it—charting is one of the most exhausting parts of the nurse’s job. Cutting back on that burden could help ease burnout, which is a serious systematic issue in the nursing profession.

And the early data is promising. Studies show that AI-powered ambient clinical documentation tools (like Dragon Copilot) greatly reduced documentation timewhile also improving the quality of clinical notes.

Of course, rolling out new technology like this isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. While Microsoft’s Health and Life Sciences COO, Mary Varghese Presti, is a former nurse, the success of Dragon Copilot will ultimately depend on how seamlessly it integrates into nurses’ workflows. That’s where nursing expertise is essential.

Clinical nurse specialists and informatics nurses will play a key role in making sure Dragon Copilot is customized to fit the unique needs of each unit. They’re the ones who can bridge the gap between frontline nurses and tech developers. If you’ve ever had a tech solution forced on you without input, you know how important it is to get this right.

For starters, organizations might want to pilot Dragon Copilot on specific units to test how it works in real-world practice. Collecting feedback from nurses (a.k.a. the experts actually using the tool) will be crucial for ironing out any kinks and making sure it serves the needs of the people it’s designed to help.

Training will also be a big piece of the puzzle. Even the best technology won’t work if nurses don’t know how to use it—or if nurses are too frustrated to give it a chance. 

Dragon Copilot isn’t about replacing nurses—it’s about making our jobs a little easier. By tackling the grunt work of documentation, this AI assistant has the potential to give nurses back something we all wish we had more of: time.

More time to connect with patients. More time to use critical thinking skills. More time to breathe between tasks. And let’s not forget, better documentation means better patient outcomes. When charts are accurate, complete, and timely, the whole care team can work more effectively.

So, while AI might sound a little intimidating, remember: it’s just a tool. And like any tool, its value comes down to how we use it. If implemented thoughtfully, Dragon Copilot could be the extra set of hands nurses have all been waiting for.

🤔 What do you think? Could this be the future of nursing workflows, or does it sound too good to be true?

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