In the medical world, artificial intelligence is being used in multiple ways to improve efficiencies and patient care. Last year, St. Charles Health System began offering doctors an AI software program called DAX. So far, 125 primary care providers and workers in ambulatory settings at St. Charles are using it. The physicians use an app on their phone to record a conversation with a patient, after first getting permission. St. Charles says DAX is more than a transcription service, it uses AI to summarize and fill out a patient’s chart. The hospital says doctors using it report they are less stressed about staying late to finish paperwork and can focus more intently on patients. One doctor reported she was spending about 20 minutes per patient updating charts which dropped to only a few minutes spent reviewing a chart after DAX.
Microsoft and Nuance developed the AI-powered listening app DAX Copilot which stands for Dragon Ambient eXperience. Dragon Copilot is trained on billions of minutes of clinical narratives and clinical conversations so it can recognize medical terminology.
Before DAX, St. Charles says 47% of its primary care providers reported they were burning out. After DAX, that number dropped to 7%. The hospital says 88% of the doctors using the technology report high job satisfaction and better documentation quality. About 75% reported a better work-life balance. St. Charles says a survey found that 89% of patients reported their provider was more focused during an exam when they used DAX and spent less time on the computer.
Artificial intelligence has also improved the use of MRI at St. Charles. According to a community newsletter, the software has been shown thousands of images so it can differentiate between a quality signal and noise, increasing its ability to scan faster.
St. Charles is also using a new AI-powered tool to screen patients at its Cancer Institute and match them with a relevant clinical trial happening nationwide. Public Information Officer Alandra Johnson says the Institute is partnering with the company Paradigm. While still in the early stages, doctors are seeing great promise. Before Paradigm, Johnson says researchers spent time manually looking through patient charts attempting to match them with appropriate clinical trials, which was time consuming.
“Currently, we are using Paradigm in a limited capacity, using the AI tool to help us with preliminary screening for trials that we have existing access to. Over the next year, we will use the tool to screen more patients for specific industry trials brought to us by Paradigm, which will ultimately give us the ability to match a greater number of patients to trials than we do today,” according to a statement forwarded by Johnson.
A study reported by Menlo Ventures last October found that the health care industry is using AI at more than twice the rate of other industries with 22% of medical organizations in the U.S. using industry-specific AI tools compared to 9% of other companies, which mostly rely on general tools like ChatGPT rather than AI solutions customized for their business.
This article appears in the Source June 25, 2026.
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