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Using artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce the administrative burden on clinicians continues to gain momentum, but lately there has been an increasing focus on helping nurses in this endeavor.

Recent reports note that the electronic health record (EHR) giant Epic Systems is piloting to support nursing workflows and reduce administrative load. The technology suggests and pre-populates clinical data in patient records, mimicking earlier physician-focused applications.

Epic is partnering with Microsoft and in this effort. Epic officials believe generative AI and ambient generative AI offer nurses a new set of tools to reinvent how they work.

Nurses are testing Epic's Rover mobile app to record conversations through a smartphone, notes a . The AI tool puts relevant portions of a conversation into the EHR, such as a patient’s pain scores. A nurse then reviews the data in the Rover app and files them to the chart.

The technology also is being tested with Microsoft at nine health systems, including Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Florida, Mercy Hospital St. Louis and Stanford Health Care in California, the report states. Pilot participants will provide feedback to Epic to refine the tools through clinical testing and iterative feedback.

Piloting AI in Nursing Workflows

Elsewhere, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center earlier this year began testing an AI mobile app called . The app allows nurses to use a mobile phone to document patient information in real time through voice dictation. It transcribes the data and then — once validated by a clinician — the app files that information directly into the patient’s EHR.

Initially being tested by nurses and clinical partners on a 48-bed surgical unit, the pilot expands on similar technologies already in use by Cedars-Sinai physicians.

, meanwhile, is using AI to augment clinical nurses’ practice skills and responsibilities. The health system is integrating different databases and technology systems to help make nurses’ work more efficient.

In a 12-hour shift, a nurse spends 132 minutes on average documenting patient information in the EHR system, according to Donna Wellbaum, MSN, R.N., chief nursing informatics officer at UCLA Health.

That’s about 18% of a nurse’s time per 12-hour shift and doesn’t account for other research that a nurse may need to conduct outside of the EHR to consult other databases and systems on policies, patient education, standards of care or other procedures.

Front-line nurses and nurses in management roles at UCSF both cite another key benefit that AI brings to the profession: being able to collect information from several sources and systems on a single screen to help them get what they need to help their patients.

Regardless, nurses always will need to apply clinical judgment and critical thinking in how they care for their patients. “Every AI tool necessitates the clinician to review and validate what was suggested," notes Kay Burke, R.N., vice president and chief nursing informatics officer at UCSF.