Want to build a Copilot for your app? Semantic Kernel & Prompt Flow for Beginners
I recently co-presented on a developer-focused webinar on Semantic Kernel for beginners. This webinar was part of a series about leveraging Azure OpenAI, with this one diving into how to add intelligent experiences into your new and existing applications.Azure OpenAI Assistance for Power Virtual Agents
Recently Greg Beaumont posted to the HLS Tech Community blog Azure OpenAI ChatGPT Solves Cryptic Error Codes from Power BI, SQL Server, Power Apps, and more!. He highlighted in the post (and video) some advantageous ways to leverage Azure OpenAI’s Chat GPT playground to respond to odd error codes. He asked at the end of the post about enabling this through a Power App, bot, or something else. Challenge accepted!Cloud For Healthcare Trial - licensed components for Power Platform & Dynamics 365 Apps
When customers hear about “Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare,” they often don’t quite know what that means.In short, the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare is synonymous with using the Microsoft Cloud used to address needs in healthcare organizations. That makes sense. However, there are some additional, optional, licensed for a set of solutions that has nearly the same name.Getting started with a mobile nurse to specialist request
As mentioned in previous posts, I’m fortunate to meet with many healthcare customers, and a use case that has come up quite a bit recently is solutions that help connect the right people together, when one of them may be “remote” and lack access to their regular applications. Some of these include: Mobile nurse requesting assistance from a physician (Nurse is external to network resources) EMT requesting ED physician (ET3 scenario) Physician to physician consult “nudge” (orders are in the EMR, requesting a live call) The Microsoft cloud supports the full spectrum of solutions ranging from lightweight to very advanced. In this post we’ll focus primarily on getting started quickly with a lightweight solution, which can be enhanced over time as your needs grow. This video minimizes the technology footprint, making use of a Teams Conference call and a low-code front-end to make request and creation of the meeting easy-breezy (and has a quick time to implement). In the recording, I cover: Configure Teams Using a Tag in a Teams channel Alternatives like Group chat Configure a Power Virtual Agent Create a dedicated bot (from scratch) for this use case Gather information from the nurse Configure the automation to set the meeting and notify the right people Deploy and share Web channel, Teams, Mobile app Note: There are links to resources called out in the video (scroll past the video). Enhancements & additional resources Virtual Appointment API – this related HLS blog post shows the use of this API in the context of another use case (and has a link to GitHub for a sample connector). This was mentioned in the video as a way to allow the Nurse to join from a mobile browser without downloading/logging into Teams. Power Virtual Agents Channels – official documentation about the available channels and securely deploying to channels of engagement. Dynamics 365 Customer Service – relevant HLS blog post which discusses the use of Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Field Service, as well as how this can be used with Practitioner data for search and routing. Final thoughts It’s worth noting that this is geared toward more of a “B2B” situation, and other approaches would be used for customer virtual visit requests. If you are interested in a follow-up video where I add some of those more advanced configurations, please let me know. I make these as a response to what I hear from our customers and partners!Connecting with patients 1:1 and via conference calls
A while back, I had posted about Virtual Visits to summarize some of the key information that was coming up in many conversations. The topic is still top of mind for many organizations, and one of the common additional questions is “how does this fit with making regular outbound calls?” Great question! In short, both of these use the same communication platform from Microsoft, so you’re not having to implement multiple point-solutions to achieve different types of communication (whew). In fact even Microsoft’s Digital Contact Center Platform uses the same foundation (though in this post, we’re not focused on contact centers). Through the course of the day, a physician or clinician might get value out of direct calling as well as ad-hoc conferencing. Our users would benefit from both of these, how does that work? Fortunately, having these capabilities stem from a consistent platform lowers a significant number of technical and administrative hurdles. Setting up users and turning on capabilities is consistent with other capabilities in Microsoft’s online services. If you’re not already using a Teams calling plan, reach out to your Microsoft account team. Once set up, they can use each tool for its respective job. Starting an audio-only call to a telephone number meets an important need. Everyone knows how to use a dialer. Even better, it’s nice to be able to click-to-dial from an application. Sometimes a voice/video conference can be helpful, such as needing to include a patient and caregiver all in the same call. Instead of a dialer, starting this kind of call requires more information, like where to send the conference/connection information. It’s not a huge burden, but it is slightly different in how you start the call. From a user’s perspective, the difference in how to start these different types of calls results in “having to know which thing to use and when”…which, while functional, can seem like the burden is on the individual. It’d be nice to have a simple, consistent, and flexible way of doing both approaches. Can we have a simplified way for our users to do both? Yes! In fact, the Ad-hoc/backup Virtual Visit app (mentioned in the intro to this post) is already flexible enough to handle clinical and non-clinical conference calls. Adding some additional flexibility to take advantage of direct calling is straightforward for someone who can build using low-code tools. Configuring a single app for a tailored launch experience like this brings some added benefits. For instance it’s now easier to: Add your colors/logos/branding so the call launch experience feels native (or can have helpful reminders on the screen) Provide click-to-invite functionality, sending an invitation via SMS or email instead of dialing out directly Additional personalized automations can be initiated when starting a call Initiating different types of engagements from other systems, like an EMR, only have one app to interact with I want to configure a launcher like this, is there a sample available? In late 2022 a sample app was configured in Microsoft Power Platform (a platform for configuring apps) and published as sample code to Microsoft Open Source on GitHub. microsoft/Virtual-visit-custom-launcher: An example of a custom virtual visit / call launcher that leverages Teams calls and Virtual Appointments, with inputs from other applications. (github.com) This includes the deployable Power Platform Solution .zip file, suitable for a sandbox environment, as well as the raw source code.Getting started with Virtual Visit Backup
Interested in getting started with the virtual visit backup solution? Below we cover a bit of guidance on the overall steps to get started with the solution, some specific links to the posts that will come in handy, as well as some frequently asked questions. Whether you’re ready to start building, or want to just get a bit more familiar, read on!Search for practitioners, route messages, and manage queues in healthcare scenarios
Healthcare providers and payors have common themes in their daily challenges. The topic of finding the right resource comes up all the time. From a simple “find a specialist” application that initiates immediate collaboration, to rules-based virtual visit queues, to match-making for shift-swaps, to targeting groups for user outreach.
