Mayo Clinic debuts its AI-powered virtual nursing assistant
The Mayo Clinic has developed a new AI tool designed to streamline nurses’ access to critical patient information and other resources, such as hospital policy documents and care guidelines. The new system, simply called the Nurse Virtual Assistant, was developed in-house to reduce the clerical burden placed on frontline clinical staff.
The nonprofit health system said in a blog announcing the assistant that it was designed by its own nursing department, which felt challenged by pulling all the information they needed on a patient from multiple hospital systems.
In a single tab, nurses can now access a “curated, nurse-specific patient summary with direct links to evidence-based practice resources,” along with administrative guidelines. The necessary information is all displayed using generative AI.
The Mayo Clinic refers to the concept as a “minimum lovable product,” defined as a simple solution to a common task that makes the “end-user experience central to creating something impactful and engaging.”
To that end, the nurses who use the AI—currently more than 9,600 in inpatient and emergency units—will shape its evolution via feedback, which can be done directly through the application's interface.
Mayo said it’s already received comments from nurses looking to expand search results and change the way content is displayed—and in some cases, those tweaks have been made.
The Nurse Virtual Assistant is currently being used exclusively at Mayo Clinic care centers in Minnesota. There was no mention of plans to license the system to other organizations. However, the announcement did mention that it’s patent-pending and fully HIPAA-compliant.
For nurses, by nurses
Development on the tool and underlying AI began in 2024 as part of a broader effort at the health system to reduce the growing administrative burden found in increasingly digital patient care settings.
The Mayo Clinic said nurses were involved in every stage of its creation, from planning to testing and now refinement.
For more, including a video of the assistant doing its job, click here.
Chad is an award-winning writer and editor with over 15 years of experience working in media. He has a decade-long professional background in healthcare, working as a writer and in public relations.