MILWAUKEE — As Microsoft works with Verona, Wisconsin-based Epic on developing more artificial intelligence applications for health care use, providers at UW Health in Madison, UC San Diego Health and Stanford Health Care have started testing out AI when it comes to patient messaging.

“This is not about the technology that makes it exciting, but it’s the potential of what it really does for our providers and our patients that makes it exciting,” said Chero Goswami with UW Health. “What we’re doing in a nutshell, in one of the first-use cases, is allowing the technology to generate responses to the hundreds of emails that we get every day. We will never trust the technology from day one, so until it gets to the point of maturity and accuracy, we’re basically using those templates to create those answers for emails... and then a [person] is reviewing every one of those responses.”

For now, at least, the trial of artificial intelligence at UW Health is reserved for patient communication only.

“Our guiding principle has always been, ‘Do no harm,’" Goswami said. “And privacy and security is number one when we do anything.”

Watch the full interview above.