ST. LOUIS – Mercy health system plans to use artificial intelligence-based services in the future in hopes to enhance patient care nationwide.

As one of the largest U.S. health systems, Mercy is working with the Microsoft Corp. on a long-term collaboration plan using generative AI.

Mercy officials say AI can offer several benefits, such as navigating digital records, correcting potential errors, and offering tools to assist medical staff.

“We are better positioned to perform real-time clinical decision-making that ultimately improves patient care,” said Joe Kelly, Mercy’s executive vice president of transformation and business development officer. “With Microsoft, we are exploring more than four dozen uses of AI and will launch multiple new AI use cases by the middle of next year to transform care and experiences for patients and co-workers. This is predictive, proactive, and personalized care at its best.”

Mercy plans to use Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service for several tasks, including, but not limited to:

Giving patients information to better understand lab results

Taking non-emergency patient calls for actions like scheduling appointments.

Recommending additional follow-up actions during a call

Offering chatbot for Mercy co-workers to find important information about Mercy policies and procedures

“Mercy has a reputation for ongoing innovation and — through our years working together — has been a leader in the industry in creating an intelligent data platform on which to launch this kind of transformation,”  said Peter Lee, corporate vice president of research and incubations at Microsoft. “This is just the beginning, and it’s inspiring to see Mercy’s leadership adopting these tools to empower physicians, providers, nurses and all clinicians to improve patient care.”

Mercy has not yet announced a firm timetable for rolling out AI-powered services. The Mercy health care system serves patients in four states and has one of its largest hospitals in St. Louis County.