CentraCare overcomes high levels of cognitive burden with Dragon solutions

With 10 hospitals, more than 30 clinics, and over 160 outreach locations in its network, CentraCare has grown to meet the needs of communities across Minnesota over the past three decades. It’s now one of the region’s largest health systems, with nearly 1,000 clinicians providing care for 356,000 patients annually. 

However, as the system grows, so does the complexity of managing it. The workload associated with documenting patient care has surged in recent years, significantly increasing the pressure on physicians and advanced practice providers, driving them towards burnout.

“Like everyone across the country, we’ve seen an increase in the documentation burden that falls on clinicians,” says Lynn McFarling MD, Chief Medical Information Officer at CentraCare. “It’s one of the leading difficulties for clinicians right now, and it causes a lot of angst.”

Initially, CentraCare relied on transcription and scribe services to handle the documentation workload. However, the turnaround time for dictated notes was often lengthy, resulting in clinicians and patients lacking timely records of their visits. Additionally, CentraCare faced challenges in equally resourcing all its locations. “Our system has a large rural footprint, and it’s not always easy to find scribes in smaller areas,” explains Dr. McFarling.

Changing the game for clinical documentation

With increasing costs for outsourced transcription and scribing, CentraCare sought a more practical alternative. They needed a solution that would enable clinicians to manage their documentation more efficiently without contributing to burnout or compromising patient care. This led the team to Dragon Medical One, a speech-driven clinical documentation companion. Dragon Medical One leverages advanced speech recognition capabilities, allowing clinicians to dictate directly into their clinical notes, significantly reducing their manual documentation workload. CentraCare implemented Dragon Medical One in 2016 and currently has over 1300 active users.

“We then made an organizational decision to stop using transcription services, which was a significant change for many of our clinicians,” says Dr. McFarling. And as the technology progressed over time, CentraCare was a natural candidate for getting involved in the new leading-edge tools as an early adopter of *DAX Copilot. “The introduction of generative AI really changed the game; there was a huge jump in functionality,” says Dr. McFarling.“Having a solution like DAX Copilot to offer with Dragon Medical One is really valuable, and the deep integration with our Epic EHR really boosted our trust in the technology. There aren’t any other vendors that are as far along in this journey.”

DAX Copilot is designed to revolutionize the way clinicians work—starting with high-quality, automatic documentation capture. Clinicians can focus all their attention on the patient in front of them, knowing that DAX Copilot is creating a comprehensive note of everything discussed. Clinicians can complete notes faster without the need to outsource to transcription services or scribes—and there’s no compromise on the quality or detail in their clinical documentation

Champion-led implementation helps clinicians embrace a new way of working

CentraCare took a steady, phased approach when they originally launched Dragon Medical One and more recently with DAX Copilot to help assure members of each cohort had all the support they needed to incorporate these solutions into their individual workflows. The team started with the provider informatics specialists, who have also taken on an instrumental role as educators to help others embrace the technology.

“The implementation has gone really well. We didn’t just immediately roll it out to hundreds of clinicians,” says Sara Lindbloom, Director of Health System Medical Transcription at CentraCare. “It suits CentraCare better to have those close touches to help the team understand the technology and how simple it is to get started.”

More than 263 clinicians are now actively using DAX Copilot as part of their clinical workflow—and their experiences are helping others in the system explore the potential of adopting the technology. Lindbloom’s team recently presented colleague testimonials to all of CentraCare’s ambulatory clinicians, along with information about recent upgrades.

“That presentation has led to a significant increase in interest in the program,” says Lindbloom. “Our champions, alongside support from Microsoft, have provided the touchpoints our clinicians need to see DAX Copilot’s potential.”

Customizable workflows put clinicians in charge of their documentation approach

As more clinicians onboard and build their own efficient documentation workflows, DAX Copilot and Dragon Medical One are now used in tandem across the health system. 

The flexibility and integrated features of DAX Copilot and Dragon Medical One allow clinicians to document in a way that suits their preferences, seamlessly switching between active dictation and automatic capture to fit their workflows. A recent internal survey* of users at CentraCare found that DAX Copilot saves clinicians an average of 5.67 minutes per encounter, allowing more time to focus on patient care. 74% of clinicians surveyed agree DAX Copilot improves the patient experience.

Recent upgrades to DAX Copilot allow clinicians to personalize their profiles by applying their own styles, enhancing customization, and boosting their satisfaction. “The new functionalities have been a huge win. I can customize my notes to better fit my personality and how I want to document,” says Dr. McFarling.

Tackling burnout by refocusing on what matters most

Testimonials are at the heart of CentraCare’s ongoing rollout, serving as a compelling demonstration to clinicians of how their colleagues are benefiting from DAX Copilot and how they can integrate it into their own notetaking. Additionally, these testimonials clearly highlight the positive impact of automated documentation and workflow improvements on the health system’s efficiency and, crucially, on reducing levels of burnout. 

“We’ve heard a lot of great testimonials from our clinicians about how DAX Copilot cuts down their documentation time and makes their working lives easier,” says Lindbloom. “One of our team members was talking about how it’s easier to get home to her kids on time. I think that would touch anybody’s heart.”

Clinicians report higher accuracy, significant time savings, and the crucial opportunity to focus their energy on their patients. Amidst the emphasis on efficiency, it's easy to overlook the importance of simple eye contact in building a stronger rapport between clinicians and patients, which contributes to better outcomes.

“DAX Copilot is amazing. One of the best things to happen in medicine in 10 years. It truly is a time saver, more accurate and makes my life easier,” reports Andrew Hoffman, MD, a Family Medicine Doctor at CentraCare. Another clinician says their documentation time has dropped by as much as two-thirds, alleviating the stress of creating comprehensive notes for every encounter. In fact, 89% of the clinicians surveyed agreed that DAX Copilot helped lessen their cognitive burden at work and 96% of those surveyed agree that DAX Copilot is easy to use.

“It’s great to have a tool that can really help our clinicians relieve that documentation burden,” says Lindbloom. “We knew DAX Copilot had the potential to be that tool from the beginning, but it’s stepped up even more than we could have expected.”

*DAX Copilot ambient listening capabilities are now part of Microsoft Dragon Copilot

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Explore how to streamline documentation, surface information, and automate tasks with Microsoft Dragon Copilot.

* Microsoft survey of 27 DAX Copilot users across CentraCare facilities, February 2025.