In the demanding world of healthcare, clinicians often find themselves bogged down by extensive documentation, which can unfortunately divert their focus from the most crucial aspect: patient care. Imagine having an intelligent assistant that could handle the bulk of this administrative burden, allowing you to dedicate more time and energy to your patients. This is precisely where Microsoft Dragon Copilot steps in.
Microsoft Dragon Copilot is designed as an AI assistant for draft clinical documentation, transforming spoken words into a powerful productivity tool. It leverages a sophisticated blend of conversational and ambient AI, combined with advanced generative AI, to streamline clinical workflows, significantly enhancing efficiency and accuracy in healthcare settings. This innovative AI solution for healthcare aims to empower healthcare providers by making clinical processes more efficient, ultimately enabling a renewed focus on the patient.
At its heart, Dragon Copilot is an advanced AI-driven tool specifically engineered to streamline clinical workflows. It seamlessly brings together the trusted natural language voice dictation capabilities of Dragon Medical One with the ambient listening features of DAX Copilot. This powerful combination is further enhanced by fine-tuned generative AI and healthcare-adapted safeguards, ensuring accuracy and security in a clinical context.
This unified experience is designed to integrate with Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and provide comprehensive support to clinicians across every stage of their workflow. As a core component of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, Dragon Copilot is built on a secure, modern architecture, providing an extensible workspace that helps organizations deliver improved experiences and outcomes for both providers and patients across various care settings.
Dragon Copilot is packed with features designed to lighten the load of clinical documentation:
A standout feature, this allows the system to intelligently capture patient encounters as they happen.
From these recordings, Dragon Copilot creates draft documentation for clinical notes. This is a significant time-saver for healthcare professionals, as it eliminates the need for manual transcription or the laborious organization of information.
Going beyond narrative notes, this intelligent tool can also generate recommendations for discrete orders, conditions, and other clinical data. This functionality is crucial for ensuring that partner systems receive accurate and complete clinical data, enhancing data integrity across healthcare systems.
The service itself encompasses front-end speech, ambient features, and generative AI (genAI) features. It’s worth noting that certain genAI features consume “pay as you go” units when using the blended licensing model. As of May 1, 2025, the rate per consumption unit is $0.01. Here’s a breakdown of how different genAI features consume these units:
These functionalities make Dragon Copilot an invaluable AI for healthcare providers, turning clinical words into a powerful productivity tool.
Microsoft Dragon Copilot offers versatile deployment options to fit various clinical environments:
These are available as Web, Desktop, and Mobile apps. They allow users to access the entire Dragon Copilot workflow independently. In this setup, once a clinical note is finalized, users manually transfer the content into their preferred Electronic Health Record (EHR). For example, a clinician might run both the Dragon Copilot Desktop app and their EHR application simultaneously on the same workstation.
This option is designed for Microsoft development partners who wish to embed this powerful AI technology directly into their own systems. Through this integration, ambient recordings can be captured directly from within the EHR mobile or desktop application, rather than requiring a separate Dragon Copilot app. Crucially, generated clinical summaries are delivered directly into the EHR, and users can make edits and utilize additional Dragon Copilot features without ever leaving their EHR system. This means no manual transfer is necessary, as the clinical content remains within the EHR for the entire workflow. It’s important to note that for integrated or embedded solutions, support is provided by the EHR vendor, who is responsible for the overall workflow of their solution. The end user also maintains a separate contractual relationship with their EHR vendor, as Microsoft does not provide or resell EHR services in this embedded experience.
Proper licensing is essential for using Microsoft Dragon Copilot. Any user who inputs data into, queries, views data within, or otherwise directly or indirectly accesses Dragon Copilot must be properly licensed.
Dragon Copilot can be acquired through two primary purchasing models:
This model comprises two parts:
Organizations have the flexibility to purchase a mix of these license types and assign them to different users within their organization, as per Microsoft Product Terms.
For purchasing, Dragon Copilot subscription licenses are available through the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) or Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider, which includes Clinical Applications Embed. If MCA is not a feasible option for a customer, subscriptions may also be purchased through Enterprise Agreement (EA), Enterprise Agreement Subscription (EAS), Server Cloud Enrollment (SCE), or Enrollment for Education Solutions (EES).
Before implementing Microsoft Dragon Copilot, there are a few critical points to remember:
Users must obtain patient consent prior to recording the patient encounter using Dragon Copilot. Organizations should provide clear guidance on securing patient consent in accordance with relevant laws and internal policies. If a patient does not give consent, clinicians can still use Dragon Copilot to record after the patient interaction has concluded.
This blog post, while comprehensive, does not supersede or replace any legal documentation covering use rights. Microsoft reserves the right to review and update its documentation without notice. Therefore, it is essential to refer to the latest Microsoft Dragon Copilot Licensing guide for up-to-date information.
Microsoft offers various levels of support, including Standard Support (included with purchase), Professional Direct Support (for production environments requiring faster responses), and Unified Support (a custom, comprehensive end-to-end option for the entire organization)
Microsoft Dragon Copilot streamlines clinical documentation, helping providers save time and focus more on patient care. With flexible deployment, powerful AI capabilities, and clear licensing options, it’s a practical solution for enhancing efficiency across healthcare settings. By reducing administrative burden, Dragon Copilot empowers clinicians to work smarter and care better.
Microsoft Solution Partner – Infrastructure (Azure)
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