SolutionHealth builds patient-focused workflows with Dragon for two health systems

SolutionHealth is an integrated non-profit health system founded by Southern New Hampshire Health and Elliot Health System, staffed by more than 1,000 clinicians who provide care to over half a million residents across southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts. With busy hospitals and medical centers across the region, SolutionHealth clinicians need fast, reliable documentation processes that can help them work efficiently even on their busiest days.

Many of Elliot Health System’s and Southern NH Health’s clinicians are longtime users of speech recognition solutions, including Dragon Medical One and and PowerScribe. When Microsoft developed DAX Copilot, SolutionHealth was the ideal candidate for early adoption.

An iterative journey of workflow improvements

SolutionHealth initially adopted Dragon Medical One to replace its legacy on-premise speech recognition application. Its original tool required extensive training to use effectively and clinicians often struggled to accurately capture notes from non-native English speakers. With this legacy solution in place, many clinicians were still typing notes directly into the EHR themselves or enlisting the help of a scribe—a costly and time-consuming alternative.

Based in the cloud, Dragon Medical One offered crucial mobility and flexibility, and its improved speech recognition capabilities meant a greater number of clinicians across SolutionHealth organizations could take advantage of faster documentation. As the industry’s top-rated conversational AI workflow assistant and documentation companion, Dragon Medical One transformed clinicians’ workflows, allowing them to complete notes more efficiently, directly in their EHR.

Embracing the next stage of speech for clinical documentation

Part of SolutionHealth’s mandate is a commitment to exploring innovative models of care and collaboration to help its teams do the right thing for each patient in every encounter. This meant that the health systems making up SolutionHealth were the ideal candidates for exploring the powerful next evolution of speech-driven workflows.

DAX Copilot is an AI-powered ambient solution that automatically documents patient encounters for seamless clinical notetaking. SolutionHealth’s focus on innovation, and its longstanding relationship with Microsoft gave its clinical leaders a seat at the table during the solution’s development—and allowed the team to see its promise from the very beginning.

Additionally, SolutionHealth’s experience with Dragon Medical One meant the team was confident that DAX Copilot would be a viable, effective solution for Elliot and Southern NH Health clinicians.

“Our relationship with Microsoft allowed us to take part in early conversations around DAX Copilot,” explains Jon Michael Vore, DO, a family medicine specialist and Chief Medical Information Officer at Southern New Hampshire Health. “Seeing presentations about how Epic was working closely with Microsoft to integrate DAX Copilot with our EHR really supported our decision to get involved.”

DAX Copilot embedded in Epic can automatically capture clinical summaries through Epic Haiku, which are then available in Epic Hyperdrive, with additional capabilities to help clinicians complete tasks seamlessly. “The collaboration with Epic creates efficiencies that mean our clinicians can spend less time on documentation and more time on providing care,” says Dr. Vore.

Adding efficiencies to carefully curated workflows

Clinicians are understandably protective of their workflows; many have spent years perfecting an approach to documentation and administrative tasks that matches their preferences. But DAX Copilot is designed for ease of onboarding and use, reducing disruption to clinicians’ established workflows and helping them get up to speed rapidly. “The training documentation clearly demonstrate how to utilize DAX Copilot,” says Dr. Vore. “Once the clinicians have used it once or twice, they realize that they can maintain their existing workflows, just with even more efficiency built in.”

Dragon Medical One and DAX Copilot create a seamless experience for clinicians who prefer to switch between active and ambient dictation to create their notes. Clinicians can use Dragon Medical One to review and edit the note generated by DAX Copilot where needed, adding information or using their own commands. “I find it easiest to create a template for my encounters in DAX Copilot. It uses smart links to pull in all the relevant information, and then I can use Dragon Medical One to do any editing,” explains Dr. Vore. “But often, the DAX Copilot notes are so good that I don’t need to add anything.”

A more patient-focused way to work

The analysis and reporting tools in Dragon Medical One and DAX Copilot mean the leadership team can monitor adoption and usage to ensure clinicians across Elliot Health System and Southern New Hampshire Health are maximizing their combined capabilities.  “Word of mouth is really powerful—the more clinicians see their colleagues use it, the more they want to use it themselves,” says Dr. Vore.

A recent internal user survey* of clinicians with the two health systems showed just how instrumental DAX Copilot has become for their workflows. Across nearly 60,000 encounters since adoption, these clinicians have reported a 56% improvement in average documentation time. This frees up time which can be redistributed to more patient encounters—an equivalent of 2.5 additional appointments per day for each clinician—or used elsewhere to catch up with other tasks. Crucially, the vast majority also report that this accelerated documentation workflow also improves quality, while allowing clinicians to refocus on the core of their roles. As Gregory Kaupp, MD, a Pediatrician at Southern New Hampshire Health, explains: “DAX Copilot is the only intervention that has actually reduced burnout for me. It's the only intervention that has actually reduced documentation time and improved my work life balance.  DAX has reduced my total documentation time per week by 4-6 hours.”

Nearly 90% of the respondents from the survey believe DAX Copilot improves the patient experience, with 65% agreeing that they’re able to spend more time focused on patients during encounters. “[DAX Copilot] allows me to focus on my nonverbal communication. Documenting notes in behavioral health can be daunting and long—DAX Copilot captures my conversations, allowing me to add in specifics at the end,” added Melissa Frechette, a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner with Southern New Hampshire Health.

Well-supported clinicians are happier, healthier, and more productive

Clinicians across Southern New Hampshire Health and Elliot Health are also reporting significant improvements in their own wellbeing at work—vital in an era of increasing volume and complexity in healthcare demand that’s at odds with workforce shortages and burnout risk. Nearly all the clinicians surveyed say they’re experiencing a lower cognitive burden thanks to DAX Copilot, with 92% highlighting improvements in burnout or fatigue and 93% saying they have a better work/life balance.

“When our clinicians see the time savings and lower cognitive burden that their colleagues are experiencing, they want it immediately. We want to extend DAX Copilot’s capabilities to support as many people as possible,” says Dr. Vore. “We know that the technology is just going to continue improving and becoming even more helpful.”

DAX Copilot ambient listening capabilities are now part of Microsoft Dragon Copilot.

Discover more about SolutionHealth on LinkedIn.

Explore how to streamline documentation, surface information, and automate tasks with Microsoft Dragon Copilot.

*Microsoft survey of 190 DAX Copilot users across SolutionHealth facilities, December 2024.