Transform patient care with virtual visits

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Innovation has always been a driving force in the healthcare industry, and Microsoft is leading the charge in delivering state-of-the-art solutions that enable healthcare organizations to revolutionize the way they operate.

 

From virtual visits to AI-infused virtual agents, Microsoft's latest healthcare solutions are designed to streamline patient care and increase engagement. In this blog post, we'll explore Microsoft's cutting-edge solutions for the healthcare industry and how they're transforming patient care.

 

 

Transform patient care with virtual visits

 

Elevate remote care with Virtual Appointments in Microsoft Teams 

 

Virtual Appointments in Microsoft Teams provides an out-of-the-box solution for clinicians to make patient-care team interactions as easy and personalized as possible, now generally available. With Teams Premium, healthcare organizations get advanced Virtual Appointments to manage the end-to-end appointment experience.

 

 

 

Delight and engage patients

 

With Teams Premium, you can facilitate a seamless care experience that allows your patients to receive text reminders and join custom branded virtual appointments through their mobile devices—without downloading Teams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Streamline appointment management

 

Schedulers and facilitators no longer need to wrestle with nonintegrated platforms, now they can set up and manage scheduled and on-demand virtual appointments in one location with advanced capabilities like appointment queuing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Measure rich analytics

 

 

With Teams Premium, view usage trends and history of virtual appointment experiences and effectiveness like no-shows and wait times with analytics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Schedule and launch virtual visits with Microsoft Teams EHR connector

 

For healthcare organizations using Epic* or Oracle Cerner**, the Microsoft Teams EHR Connector enables care teams to schedule and launch Teams virtual visits directly from their electronic health record (EHR) system. The connector gives patients flexibility with the option to join virtual visits via browser, the Teams app, patient provider portals, or SMS, and offers support for group visits. For care teams, this solution increases peace of mind with enhanced security and compliance features and visibility into consumption data reports and call quality information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connect with patients from anywhere with Teladoc Health Solo™ with Microsoft Teams

 

Teladoc is a highly configurable virtual healthcare platform that connects people, technology, and devices at scale, increasing the focus on patient care. Organizations can build new and existing workflows to simplify their care teams’ collaboration and communication and empower patients to stay informed securely from virtually anywhere. With Teladoc, providers can integrate with multiple EHRs.

 

 

Streamline operations to improve the clinician experience

 

Leverage the power of AI across your healthcare organization

 

Last month we announced the release of Power Virtual Agents (PVA) bots in Power Apps, which add native integration of AI-infused virtual agents into all Power Apps, currently in preview. Developers can now easily add a PVA bot to their healthcare organization’s applications so users can get intelligent answers based on information from public sites all within the context of their application. For app owners who are looking for the fastest, easiest way to infuse ChatGPT-powered AI, this is how they can seamlessly add it to their healthcare organization’s applications. For example, with a Power App that tracks employee handwashing, PVA can be added to use AI querying to track employee metrics around this procedural process—providing hospital administration with valuable data. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re only beginning to see the full breadth of AI use case possibilities in healthcare. It’s clear that it’s rapidly becoming a valuable tool, whether for using it to answer questions from a new employee, shortening the lead time of critical information reaching a healthcare worker, or searching for a specific need within their Power Apps such as a hospital directory. Instead of spending time sifting through scattered information to find the right clinician, they can now use PVA to search for exactly what they need, whether that’s a pediatrician who specializes in immunology or a cardiologist that is available on weekends. AI technology eases the burden on care teams, as they no longer must go searching for answers, but rather these answers are available at their fingertips in real time. 

 

 

 

Improve hospital processes and optimize efficiency with Tasks

 

We’re excited to announce a new checklist completion requirement feature for Tasks. With this new feature, all checklist items will be required to be completed before the task can be marked as complete in the system. For example, it can be used for a hospital’s admission process to ensure that all necessary information such as obtaining a patient’s medical history and verifying insurance information are completed before the patient is transferred to their assigned room. This enables organizations to help ensure all necessary steps are completed for a task, reducing mistakes, and improving overall task accuracy.

 

 

Make scheduling at your hospital seamless

 

To help relieve the burden on care teams, at Microsoft Ignite 2022, we introduced our partnership with UKG, a leader in human capital and workforce management with over 70,000 customers in 150 countries. We’ve co-engineered the Teams Shifts connector for UKG Dimensions to give healthcare workers the ability to view and accept open shifts, request time off, clock in and out, and more. The connector is now generally available and joins our ecosystem of Shifts connectors along with Blue Yonder and Zebra Technologies. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Empower care team communication and collaboration

 

 

 

Connect your care teams with instant communication

 

 

 

 

All our Walkie Talkie features are available on devices from our industry-leading partners including Honeywell, Samsung, and Zebra Technologies. The Honeywell CT30 XP HC offers a lightweight, durable form that provides communications, scanning, and data functionality for healthcare providers. There is a removable battery to support multiple shifts and shared devices on the rugged TC5X-HC series from Zebra Technologies to support healthcare frontline workers as well. Each device comes with dedicated buttons to enable direct push-to-talk communications, removing the need for separate extraneous devices. To help with discovery and onboarding, we are making nudge to explore generally available this month. All first-time users of Walkie Talkie will now see a red badge notification on the walkie talkie icon on the app tray to help them get started.

 

 

 

 

Provide centralized access to key information

 

In an industry where strong communication is critical to health and safety, we’re excited to announce that Microsoft Viva Connections pre-configuration for frontline workers is now generally available. This experience pins Viva Connections to the app tray in Microsoft Teams and offers a simplified dashboard that includes relevant adaptive cards for Shifts, Tasks, Approvals, and Top News, providing a quick way to access these key workflows and resources.— With these tools, organizational leaders can optimize their communications to improve processes for clinic closings, distributing new safety guidelines by department or local managers, and sharing best practices specific to different communities. This experience is rolling out in Teams for users on an F-SKU throughout April. Learn more about the tailored app experience for frontline workers here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to help ensure that communication and connection travels with them wherever they go, Viva Connections recently launched new experiences that unify the UI across desktop, mobile, and tablets. Now, tasks in the Dashboard, news from the Feed, and organizational-wide resources are easily accessible across any device. Both the desktop and tablet experiences are generally available now. Learn more about how Viva Connections is enhancing the desktop experience here and how to quickly launch it at your organization.

 

 

 

 

Foster connection between your frontline healthcare workers

 

Last year we introduced Microsoft Viva Engage, an evolution of the Yammer Communities app in Microsoft Teams, and in February 2023 we announced that all of Yammer will become Viva Engage, retiring the Yammer brand. Outside of branding changes, there are no changes to the features, capabilities, and investments for Microsoft 365 customers. You will continue to experience and benefit from the power of Viva Engage to improve employee engagement just as you did with Yammer, with no loss of continuity. In addition, we’ve already begun to enhance Viva Engage with new capabilities that spur leadership engagement, authentic expression, events, and knowledge discovery. Learn more here.

 

 

Help safeguard your healthcare organization

 

Seamlessly deploy Microsoft 365 apps on shared devices

 

It’s also critical to enable secure communications across healthcare organizations with a robust set of built-in compliance and identity management tools to help protect patient information.

 

 

 

Hospitals often supply mobile devices that need to be shared across care teams and between shifts and appointments. Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) enables easy sign-in and sign-out for apps configured to support this feature. In May, shared device mode support for Microsoft Outlook, Edge, Power Apps, and Yammer apps on Android devices will be generally available, joining the portfolio of apps including Microsoft Teams that can be securely accessed through Microsoft Intune.

 

On iOS devices, shared device mode support on Microsoft Intune for securely accessing Microsoft Teams is currently in preview. Healthcare organizations using SOTI and VMware Workspace ONE as their third-party unified endpoint management solutions for Android can also enroll devices in Azure AD with shared device mode. VMWare Workspace ONE’s support and SOTI’s support for shared device mode is in preview. Learn more about shared device mode.

 

 

 

CTA’s:

 

Read the Microsoft 365 HIMSS blog to see more of what we’ll be showcasing at HIMSS23.

 

To learn more about Microsoft’s latest solutions, read the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare blog.

 

To explore more of what will be showcased at HIMSS, visit our event website.

 

Watch demos, read customer stories, and learn about new features on the Microsoft Teams and healthcare site for frontline workers.

 

*Epic is a registered trademark of Epic Systems Corporation

 

**For Oracle Cerner customers, the EHR Connector is only available in the US.

 

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