Salesforce announces new AI tools for doctors

Salesforce on Thursday announced new data and artificial intelligence solutions for health-care workers that could help lessen their burdensome administrative workloads.  

The first tool is called Einstein Copilot: Health Actions, and it will allow doctors to book appointments, summarize patient information and send referrals by prompting AI with conversational language, according to a release. Salesforce also announced Assessment Generation, which will allow organizations to digitize health assessments like surveys without having to manually type or code them, the release said.

Both features are built on the company's Einstein 1 Platform, which health organizations can use to bring medical data from disparate sources like insurance claims systems and electronic health records into one place. 

Labor-intensive administrative tasks like filing paperwork are a big problem for health-care workers. It's one of the leading drivers of burnout among physicians, according to a recent survey from Athenahealth. More than 90% of physicians report feeling burned out on a "regular basis" the survey found, and 64% of doctors said they feel overwhelmed by administrative requirements. 

The clerical workload is often compounded because health-care data is stored across many different databases and formats, making it difficult and time-consuming for clinicians to track down the needed information. As a result, unifying data across health-care systems is a growing opportunity for tech companies like Google, Amazon Web Services and Salesforce, which offer cloud-based customer relationship management tools. 

Salesforce said doctors can use Einstein Copilot: Health Actions to generate a patient summary that includes details like patients' medications, clinical service requests, diagnoses and tests. By generating a summary with AI, physicians would no longer need to spend time looking up all those components independently.  

Salesforce said its Assessment Generation tool will be generally available this summer, and Einstein Copilot: Health Actions will be available for use at the end of the year. All Einstein Copilot features and functionalities are also expected to comply with HIPAA regulations as of this summer, the company added.

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