healow drives a nearly 50% reduction in US clinician administrative burden using Microsoft Azure OpenAI in Foundry Models

Digital health IT software developer healow is on a mission to revolutionize healthcare and reduce clinician burnout with the power of AI. The company wanted to empower clinicians to build a strong rapport with patients using an innovative AI medical scribe, Sunoh.ai.

After deploying Microsoft Azure solutions Azure AI Speech and Azure OpenAI in Foundry Models, Sunoh.ai is saving clinicians up to two hours per day. Sunoh.ai supports 13 different languages, enhancing patient-clinician relationships around the world.

Embracing AI to enhance patient-clinician interactions

The patient-clinician relationship is at the heart of quality healthcare. Named from an acronym for “health and online wellness,” healow is passionate about enhancing the patient and provider experience through its comprehensive wellness platform.

As global populations age, clinicians are handling higher patient loads and more administrative tasks, including updating patients’ electronic health records (EHRs). The increased workload contributes to feelings of burnout in clinicians, and patients can feel disconnected from clinicians.

“In the exam room, the doctor is listening to the patient and capturing the conversation while typing into their EHR important information about the discussion,” says Rakhee Langer, Vice President of healow. Clinicians often spend hours after work reviewing and finalizing clinical notes—nearly six hours for every eight hours of patient scheduled time, according to the American Medical Association.^[1]

Knowing this, healow conceptualized an ambitious plan to empower clinicians to leave the keyboards behind during patient visits. The company envisioned an AI-driven solution that could listen to patient-clinician conversations and draft a clinical note to add to the patient’s EHR.

Saving clinicians up to two hours per day in clinical documentation time

To create this solution—called Sunoh.ai—healow turned to Azure AI Speech for multilingual speech-to-text services and Azure OpenAI in Foundry Models for cutting-edge large language models. The ambient AI scribe listens to and transcribes multi-person interactions, then drafts a note that clinicians later review and send to their EHR system.

Clinicians report saving up to two hours per day using Sunoh.ai, with a nearly 50% decrease in their administrative burden—translating to an improved work-life balance. “Sunoh.ai streamlines documentation methods for our providers—they can easily access the AI scribe and document on any device, such as a phone, tablet, or laptop,” says Esteban Gentle, Analyst at Hendry Regional Medical Center, an active user. “Sunoh.ai saves our providers more than two hours daily.”

Most importantly, clinicians and patients both report feeling a deeper sense of connection during consultations because of increased eye contact and active listening. Clinicians can use any device to record the discussion, and they are able to have a more direct conversation with patients.

“The physician is more structured and articulate about the conditions and treatment plans,” says Langer. “Patients appreciate that specificity because now they feel more invested in their overall care.”

Advancing patient care and scaling securely

Sunoh.ai has been adopted by large and small healthcare providers in the United States, Canada, India, and the United Arab Emirates. The AI scribe supports 13 different languages, and healow adds six to seven new languages approximately every two months. The company updates Sunoh.ai with new features, such as a private cloud, to improve services every two weeks.

The solution also takes advantage of the built-in security of Microsoft products to protect its global patient records. “Because of the size of our customer base, we have to scale a product or solution 10 times after launch in a very short period of time,” says Saurabh Singh, Vice President of Product Engineering at healow. “Microsoft was very helpful because they understood our need to scale quickly, and the proper security regulations were already in place.”

Harnessing AI innovation for the future of medicine

Employees at healow are already eagerly exploring additional ways to enhance patient care in more complex health settings, such as a pediatrician visit with multiple patients and a caregiver. In the healthcare industry, which can be slow to adopt innovative technology, AI is making a noticeable impact.

“AI is probably one of the fastest technologies to be embraced by physicians,” says Langer. “They love it. Physician burnout is real. Being able to make a difference there is really gratifying.”

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_{^[1]Andis Robeznieks, “Five physician specialties that spend the most time in the EHR,” September 11, 2024, https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/digital-health/five-physician-specialties-spend-most-time-ehr}