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Navigating AI for Healthcare: The Ideal Copilot

This blog post was authored by Corey Harrison - Managing Director, Microsoft Solutions, Jody Casey- Managing Director, Technology Strategy and Architecture and Brian Parrino, Director, Microsoft Solutions on Protiviti's technology insights blog.

The healthcare industry is facing unprecedented challenges, with varied causes. People are living longer, so demand for care continually increases, particularly for chronic diseases. There’s a shortage of skilled labor, and workloads are becoming unmanageable. Skilled workers are leaving the industry as burnout affects doctors, nurses and other clinicians. Administrative burdens often overwhelm those who remain. At the same time, regulations governing healthcare continue to evolve, while pressure on prices for healthcare services intensifies.

Meanwhile, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) create new opportunities for enhanced productivity. AI technology and its applications have arrived at a critical inflection point — one that’s captured the attention of healthcare leaders looking for ways to increase efficiency and productivity in response to healthcare’s current challenges.

Productivity, process-by-process

We believe that healthcare enterprises already running operations on a Microsoft platform will find that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is the simplest way to introduce AI technology. Copilot for M365 brings Microsoft’s AI capabilities into the enterprise’s existing Microsoft productivity toolset. Its features integrate with Microsoft 365 applications on the desktop (office) and the web (M365), so interactions with AI are set in the context of tools that are already familiar to users.

As Copilot’s capabilities grow, organisations have begun enabling the construction of in-house, low-code, generative AI solutions. Custom Copilots can integrate with Azure and OpenAI tools to engage with users across applications, websites and social media.

Two-thirds of all early adopters said Copilot saved them time, allowing them to focus on more important work. Copilot references the enterprise’s own data that is already stored in their M365 platform.

The metrics concerning AI are especially compelling: across all industries, enterprises can expect average returns of 350 percent on their AI technology investment and realise similar returns in 14 months or less by applying AI solutions to business processes.

Healthcare’s early adopters are already applying AI to gain efficiencies in processes like:

  • Conducting payor surveys
  • Automating revenue cycle communications
  • Conducting market research
  • Onboarding and training staff
  • Conducting quality audits
  • Assessing vendors
  • Managing open enrollment
  • Managing corporate communications
  • Managing employee benefits and compensation
  • Deriving fresh insights from business data

In a recent webinar Protiviti hosted, participants said they’re looking for Copilot to help solve their top challenges like optimising operational workflows (51%), gaining new insights into business results (20%), improving employee experiences (14%), managing utilisation (6%), analysing providers and enabling self-service for call centres (4% each).

Flexibility and costs

Copilot licensing is per monthly user, which gives organisations great flexibility in assigning licenses to the individuals who’ll realise the most benefit. Once Copilot is in place, administrators can assess who’s using it the most using the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard. Someone who engages with Copilot several times a week would be deriving sufficient value; licenses can always be reassigned to users who’ll make the most of Copilot’s potential.

Security

Healthcare enterprise and IT leaders share concerns about security in the context of launching and adopting any AI, including Copilot. They worry about data protection rules, access to documents and a lack of AI governance.

Copilot recognises and respects the security measures already in place in an enterprise’s technology environment. Assessing security readiness in M365 content for AI consists of reviewing security tools and processes already in place and ensuring they’re robust enough to support the introduction of Copilot. Organisations will want to consider, for instance, whether sensitivity and retention labels have already been applied, and how effectively the lifecycle of relevant content is being managed.

Developers can use Microsoft Graph Data Connect (MGDC) to specify data policies; administrators can then review those policies to ensure compliance throughout the enterprise. MGDC is a MS Azure add-on that uses a granular consent model to control how users access the organisation’s data. Any individual request would only be authorised to read or operate on data for which those permissions have already been explicitly granted.

By using these security design options, security leaders can rest assured that neither data referenced, nor requests made via Copilot are ever used to train data models external to their organisations.

Healthcare success story

Recently, Protiviti worked with a large healthcare organisation to securely introduce Copilot for Microsoft 365 across its enterprise. During our recent webinar, the client described the experience as well as best practices developed along the way. The company had recently launched Copilot to improve employee productivity.

Protiviti first conducted Protiviti’s Microsoft 365 Copilot Readiness Assessment and operational planning to harness all of Copilot’s capabilities, beginning with an evaluation to ensure implementation readiness. During the evaluation, we determined a baseline of AI awareness, technical readiness, organisational alignment and priority use cases. Then, deployment began.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 made it possible for this large healthcare organisation to chat with AI in conversational language, getting detailed and customised answers from across the web, drafting emails, generating images and answering complex questions – all while providing the user its sources of information.

Getting started with Copilot

Like this client, healthcare organisations already operating on a Microsoft platform are well-positioned to adopt Copilot to empower staff with AI. While it may be tempting to start the AI journey within the IT department, there’s real benefit to engaging business partners early and generating support for enterprise-wide adoption through quick wins within the lines of business or back-office functions.

Once a business case is selected, the process and considerations will be familiar from other technology launches: developing deployment plans, ensuring security readiness, preparing for user adoption and training, defining governance, implementing any additional security technology indicated and road mapping for eventual expansion.

Improved productivity, fresh business insights

Healthcare is at an exciting inflection point at which AI solutions that address today’s healthcare business challenges are readily available. These solutions are already improving productivity and delivering fresh business insights to healthcare organisations. For healthcare enterprises already operating on a Microsoft platform, Copilot for Microsoft 365 is a natural next step.

To learn more about our Microsoft consulting solutions, contact us.

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