Intermountain Health reduces clinician burnout with Microsoft Dragon Copilot

Intermountain Health is the largest nonprofit health system in the Intermountain West, dedicated to creating healthier communities and helping patients thrive. Intermountain is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, and as of February 2026, it operates 34 hospitals, over 400 clinics, and employs more than 68,000 caregivers. Its health plan, Select Health, covers more than 1.1 million members. With nearly a million emergency visits and over half a million hospital admissions annually, Intermountain has long been recognized for pioneering integrated care and proactive care (value-based-care) models.

At the heart of Intermountain’s mission of helping people live the healthiest lives possible is a commitment to high-quality, affordable care, health equity, and sustainability. Yet, like many health systems, Intermountain faced mounting challenges: clinician burnout, administrative overload, and the growing complexity of documentation requirements. These pressures challenge operational efficiency and the human connection between caregivers and patients.

An effort to reduce cognitive burden

Intermountain clinicians previously relied on a mix of front-end speech tools, dictation, and EHR templates. While these solutions offered incremental improvements, they fell short of addressing the core issue: the cognitive and administrative burden that consumed hours of clinicians’ time and affected work-life balance. 

Intermountain’s leadership recognized that documentation inefficiencies were more than a workflow problem—they were a human problem. Physicians reported spending too much of their time completing charts. The organization needed a solution that could seamlessly integrate into Epic, its enterprise-wide EHR, adopted in September 2025, and deliver measurable improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and clinician satisfaction.

Rehumanizing patient care with Microsoft Dragon Copilot

Intermountain’ s longstanding partnership with Microsoft and Nuance led to the organization adopting DAX Copilot in 2021, an ambient clinical intelligence solution and predecessor to Dragon Copilot. Intermountain saw an immediate impact on clinician satisfaction ratings and reduction in time spent on clinical documentation. With the advent of Microsoft Dragon Copilot in the spring of 2025, Intermountain made the decision to offer their clinicians Microsoft’s AI assistant for clinical workflow.

In July 2025, Intermountain began a pilot with physicians using Dragon Copilot. The early results were strong, prompting the system to move forward with a full rollout embedded directly into their Epic workflows. Their team mobilized quickly, deploying licenses to nearly all physicians across every region. With Dragon Copilot integrated into Epic, clinicians could capture multiparty conversations in real time and automatically generate accurate, specialty-specific notes, freeing up more time to spend with patients.

Intermountain supported providers who could benefit from ambient listening with both access to the tool and confidence in using it. As Chief Health Informatics Officer Tamara Moores Todd, MD, explained, “Really, it's the speed and the ability to embed within our native EHR, Epic” that ultimately allowed Intermountain to scale and grow their user base rapidly.

A partnership to quickly scale

To bring this goal to life, Intermountain partnered with Accenture (ACN) to design and execute a comprehensive adoption strategy that would drive meaningful, lasting engagement across the organization. In partnership with clinical leaders, they mapped out how to impact clinician workflows, identified barriers to adoption, optimized the solution by specialty, and designed hands-on support to facilitate adoption of Dragon Copilot.

During the 13-week deployment from April 2025 to June 2025, 894 clinicians received in-person training, 496 joined online classes, and 67 support staff attended ‘train the trainer.’

Over the ensuing months, the adoption of Dragon Copilot at Intermountain increased exponentially with the combined efforts of Microsoft, ACN, and Intermountain Health. These efforts led to robust onboarding for new adopters through specialty-specific workflows and real-time coaching, available either in person or virtually. 

“Since we first implemented Dragon Copilot, the technology has progressed from a virtual documentation tool to a broader ambient listening platform,” said Intermountain Health Chief Clinical Officer JP Valin, MD, MHA, MACP. “As we integrate artificial intelligence and advanced data, this tool will simplify the care we deliver and improve the quality of care and experience for our patients and our communities.” 

The resulting improvements in utilization and positive clinician feedback prompted senior medical leadership to extend ACN’s support, reinforcing strong momentum and engagement. 

“Intermountain’s commitment to making advanced technology available to each clinician is inspiring, and Dragon Copilot is a game-changing tool that reduces administrative burden and expands patient access. At Accenture, we’re proud to bring our expertise to ensure these innovations aren’t just adopted—they’re embraced and drive measurable impact,” said Tejash Shah, MD, Managing Director, Global Lead, Care Reinvention at Accenture.

Impact: Driving sustainable outcomes

Since their go-live date in early September, Intermountain has scaled rapidly across their clinician userbase and, as of the end of 2025, has over 2,500 active Dragon Copilot users. The impact has been felt across the entire organization, leading to reduced cognitive burden, improved documentation efficiency, and a renewed joy in practicing medicine. 

From a view of their Epic Signal data between April 2024 and December 2025, 2,285 clinicians who have used Dragon Copilot with 10 or more encounters have experienced a 27% reduction in time in notes per appointment when using Dragon Copilot.  

“Our people love it," said Tamara Moores Todd, MD, Chief Health Informatics Officer. "I have so many people coming to me saying, ‘Wow, I was going to retire with this EHR shift, now with Dragon Copilot, and my ambient dictation, I'm going to hang around. I think I can serve my patients for a few more years.’”