June 2024

You probably read the predictions. For a decade, they peddled the same sunny promise: Someday AI will help make medicine smarter and faster.

Someday has dawned. Nearly 80% of health care organizations now use AI. In fact, AI is already helping to reduce repetitive clinical tasks and enable more precise treatments.

This month, we’re sharing a progress note on the confluence of tech and medicine, detailing how certain solutions are delivering a shot in the arm for personal wellness – and for innovations across health care.

We’ll tell you how AI is helping doctors detect more breast cancers. We’ll share the tale of a teen author who leaned on AI to conquer his anxiety. And we’ll take you to a place where people are rebuilding their balance one step at a time.

Hey, maybe an app a day will keep the doctor away. OK, we kid. But we did ask Microsoft Copilot to write a cheeky prescription for living healthier.

Many technologists spend their days building AI tools. That’s hardly a newsflash. But did you know they also use generative AI in their personal lives to help them find answers in the most precious moments?

In some cases, the technology can nudge people with tips, advice and reminders. Peter Lee, president of Microsoft Research, even coined a phrase for that: “reverse prompting.” Not long ago, Lee relied on that capability when his father was ill.

“(We could give) all the lab results, all the notes, to GPT-4, and explain ... that we’re going to have a 15-minute phone conversation with (my dad’s doctor) and just prompt, “What would be the best two or three things to ask?”

Like Lee, lots of folks are using tech solutions to pursue better health and wellness, for themselves or others. One of those is 13-year-old author Judah Friedman.

After his family moved to Chicago, Judah felt anxious about the new place and new faces. He described his unease in a school essay that touched his classmates and convinced Judah to share his tale with more people.

With help from his dad, a Microsoft exec, Judah used AI to turn his essay into an illustrated book, “Max & the Purple Anxiety Monster,” which explores the power of naming and taming fearful feelings.

Taming the fear of falling is the aim for many patients at FYZICAL Therapy & Balance Centers – including retired pharmacist Murray Stollwerk, 85. After a tumble caused him to break some facial bones, Stollwerk became isolated. Then he started physical therapy sessions at FYZICAL in Cary, North Carolina.

The workouts helped Stollwerk regain his footing and step back into a life of lunches and dinners out with friends. Since 2022, FYZICAL has opened 150 new U.S. locations, relying on seven Microsoft 365 apps to scale and operate its network.

Deeper in the medical trenches, more doctors and diagnosticians are turning to AI to pursue better health outcomes.

In Portland, Oregon, Dr. Rom Leidner opens each clinic visit by greeting his patient then diving into a sea of their medical data. Leidner, an oncologist at Providence Cancer Institute Franz Clinic, scans about 20 computer files – from blood-test results to weight trends – to see a picture of that patient’s cancer. To stay on schedule with patients, Leidner spends weekends copying and pasting all that info into their charts.

Now, Providence – a 51-hospital organization – is collaborating with Microsoft to develop prototype AI tools that can sift through that data in real-time, matching patients to the most appropriate clinical trials and ultimately advancing cancer treatments.

In the UK, meanwhile, an AI-based solution called Mia is helping doctors find 12% more breast cancers than routine screenings can detect. In fact, mammograms miss tumors in about 20% of women with breast cancer.

A proud anthem  

How do we describe the theme behind Microsoft’s 2024 Pride campaign?

Happiness? Close. Jubilation? Getting warmer.

This month, our LGBTQIA+ communities chose a truly blissful motif: “Radical joy.” It’s an ode to beauty and a reminder that progress often comes in small moments of affirmation, resistance and celebration.

As part of the campaign, several LGBTQIA+ Microsoft employees shared what gives them joy. Like Thea: “To see and be seen as who we really are.” And like Giverny: Feeling “fearless in my identity."

Caroline Scalley embodies that same mentality. After a journey of self-discovery, Scalley embraced their nonbinary identity. That stoked a fresh confidence at work for the Microsoft senior business admin. “Knowing that I can do that in my job ... means that I can do that in real life.”

Check out Scalley’s video plus similar stories shared by other Microsoft employees at our LGBTQIA+ communities page.

Block party!

Bust out the balloons, the bubbly and, of course, the blocks.

Minecraft just celebrated its 15th anniversary. To mark the moment, members of the Minecraft community recently shared how the video game has impacted their lives. And their answers are as fun as their gamer or team names.

There’s Razzleberries, who met her husband and many friends through Minecraft. Same story for AdaEnchilada. The wedding vows that she and her husband traded included tales from their times at conventions – and with the friends they made in survival and creative modes.

But OwengeJuiceTV took a more global view: “The command blocks in the game allow anyone … to start changing the world around them.”

Cheers!

Just a song before we go

Here’s a quick challenge for you: Click on Jerome Collins’ video … and try not to smile.

As he belts out an a cappella, four-word mantra -- “You can achieve anything ... “– he’s simultaneously singing about his father’s final slice of advice and about his love of innovation.

Collins, a senior commercial executive at Microsoft, calls music and art his lifelong passions and his wells of inspiration. They are the creative forces, he says, that urge him to innovate, to bring to life things that don’t exist.

That sentiment also represents what his dad told Collins before he passed away: “Whatever you do, you’re going to be great at it. Just … do it with all your heart.”

Thank you, Mr. Collins. Some fatherly wisdom we can all use.

Between issues, follow the Microsoft News and Stories LinkedIn page for the latest company news, or visit us at Microsoft Source to learn about people doing extraordinary things with technology.