Use Microsoft Word's AI to Reformat Discharge Summaries

What This Does

Word's Copilot feature rewrites and restructures your rough discharge summary draft into a polished, consistently formatted clinical document — without you having to retype anything.

Before You Start

• You have Microsoft 365 with Copilot enabled (check with your IT department or your Microsoft account)
• You have a draft discharge summary open in Word (even rough bullet points work)
• You're logged into your Microsoft account

Steps

1. Find the AI feature

Open your draft in Word. Look for the Copilot button in the Home tab ribbon (it has a small sparkle/star icon). If you don't see it, go to View → check if Copilot is in the sidebar. You can also press Alt+I on Windows to open it.

2. Tell it what you need

In the Copilot pane, type a specific instruction. For example:

• "Rewrite this discharge summary with clear section headers: Reason for Admission, Psychosocial Assessment, Discharge Plan, and Services Arranged."
• "Make this summary more concise and professional — keep it under 300 words."
• "Add a section for Patient/Family Education at the end of this discharge summary."

3. Review and use the result

Copilot will show you a rewritten version. Click Keep to replace your text, or Discard to try again with different instructions. Copy the final version and paste it into Epic. Always read through the full output before submitting — Copilot occasionally rephrases things in ways that need clinical correction.

Real Example

Scenario: You have a messy Word document with bullet points from a family meeting and a discharge conversation, and you need to turn it into a formal discharge summary before the end of your shift.

What you type: "Rewrite these notes as a professional social work discharge summary with sections: Presenting Situation, Social History and Support, Discharge Plan, and Follow-Up. Use formal clinical language."

What you get: A clean 250-300 word document with four labeled sections, professional language, and a logical flow that you can paste directly into Epic after adding patient-specific details.

Tips

• Use specific instructions about section headers rather than just "make this better" — you'll get much more useful results
• If you use the same discharge summary structure every time, save your Copilot instruction as a text note you can copy-paste each time
• Copilot works well with rough notes and half-sentences — it's forgiving of messy input

Tool interfaces change — if a button has moved, look for similar AI/magic/smart options in the same menu area.