Vanderbilt Health in Nashville, Tenn., is rolling out an AI-powered virtual assistant within its patient portal.
The tool launched April 1 at Primary Care One Hundred Oaks as part of a phased implementation and marks the first patient-facing AI tool deployed at scale by Vanderbilt Health, according to a May 12 news release from the health system.
Integrated into My Health at Vanderbilt, the assistant activates when patients select “medical question” in the portal. The system asks follow-up questions tailored to the patient’s concern, such as symptoms, medication questions or postoperative updates, and then drafts a more detailed message for the patient to review before sending. Patients can opt out of additional questions, edit the draft or submit their original message unchanged.
The assistant uses a large language model from OpenAI through a Microsoft Azure cloud environment already used by Vanderbilt Health for clinical applications, according to the news release. Vanderbilt said patient information is not retained by the AI provider.
The tool incorporates Vanderbilt Health triage protocols, care-routing instructions and nursing triage guidelines through a technique known as retrieval-augmented generation. Vanderbilt said the assistant is designed to ask questions similar to those a nurse or access agent would ask while avoiding medical advice and preserving plain-language communication.
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