Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1541326
21 CMO / CARE DELIVERY Atrium Health gets $100K to train nurses on ambient AI By Giles Bruce A s health systems look to adopt ambient AI to ease nursing documentation, it can be a challenge to get nurses to verbalize tasks they are accustomed to doing in their heads. Atrium Health Union, part of Charlotte, N.C.-based Advocate Health, thinks it may have found a solution. e Monroe, N.C., hospital received a $100,000 award Oct. 8 from the American Nurses Credentialing Center for a program that will leverage virtual reality to train nurses how to use ambient listening for EHR documentation. "Nurses aren't used to narrating their assessments and their care, so while they're in workflow, they're used to recording it on a computer, rather than talking through it and having it be recorded," Betty Jo Rocchio, DNP, CRNA, executive vice president and chief nurse executive of Advocate Health, told Becker's. "One of the things we wanted to try was a virtual reality teaching them how to speak their assessment and have it be recorded." Since April, Atrium Health Union has been a testing site for Microso's Project Nursing tool that uses ambient listening and AI to record in- room patient assessments and automatically fill in information in EHRs. e technology is in "private preview" among 60 medical- surgical nurses, for whom the VR training will be offered. "Nurses rise to new challenges every day, and AI can be a tool to help them," said Denise White, MSN, RN, vice president, facility executive and chief nursing officer at Atrium Health Union, in a news release. "rough this enhanced training, I believe nurses will begin to see how AI can complement their work, allowing them to better connect with their patients and elevate the care experience for every patient we serve." With ambient listening, the notes are filled in automatically, saving nurses documentation time that can be transferred to the bedside. Nurses currently spend about two hours per shi documenting; Dr. Rocchio said she believes ambient technology can cut that by about two-thirds. More timely documentation will also improve care, she said. "Nurses love the concept and love the technology. It's just that learning to work it into workflows in front of patients was their key [challenge]," Dr. Rocchio said. "e impact of the change on a nursing process — this is one of the biggest that we've seen in a long time." Ambient AI for clinical documentation, like Microso's DAX (aka Dragon) Copilot, has been successful in reducing burnout among outpatient providers but is in the earlier stages of development for nurses and inpatient settings. Ambulatory physicians and advanced practice providers, however, typically focus on a single issue in conversation with patients, while inpatient nurses take head-to-toe assessments of every patient at the beginning of each shi, oen A new model to measure nursing's economic value By Erica Cerutti A new model aims to help hospitals and health system leaders better understand how investments in nursing contribute to financial sustainability. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in Baltimore and Marquette University College of Nursing in Milwaukee introduced the Nursing Human Capital Value Model Oct. 7, during a preview event for the American Nurses Enterprise's annual Research Symposium. The model is the product of a two-year study led by the American Nurses Enterprise Institute for Nursing Research and Quality Management. It is intended to serve as a framework that hospital and health system leaders can use to quantify and communicate how investments in nursing directly contribute to improved patient outcomes, cost savings and sustainable financial performance. Historically, investments in nurses' education, training and work environment have been viewed primarily as costs. Nurse leaders say the new model is meant to shift that perspective by demonstrating how nursing investments can drive better care and revenue growth. "The goal of this study was to reframe how nurses are traditionally viewed — not just as caregivers, but as strategic assets whose expertise drives both clinical excellence and financial stability," Brad Goettl, DNP, RN, chief nursing officer of the ANE said in a news release. "This model provides a powerful tool for healthcare leaders to understand and act on the true return on investment in nursing." Before its release, researchers piloted the model in healthcare settings to evaluate how well it quantified nursing's economic value. This marks the latest effort in a broader push to redefine how nursing's effect on patient care is measured. In October 2024, a group of nurse leaders published a framework that urged hospital leaders to go beyond harm prevention when assessing nurses' influence on patient care. The proposal called for new metrics that reflect the full scope of nursing work, including patient education and emotional support. The ANA is also advocating for payment reforms, saying a lack of transparency in current reimbursement structures make it difficult to measure nursing's value and limit investments in the workforce. n