"Will AI save physicians and clinicians time and from burnout?"
"Copilots for clinicians are also becoming more common. Ambient clinical documentation is a booming business. The technology allows doctors to record conversations with patients to automatically turn them into clinical notes and summaries using AI and is a major topic at Healthcare conferences like HIMSS conference this year, where more than 30,000 health and tech professionals gathered in Orlando, Florida."
"Earlier in March, Salesforce announced Einstein Copilot: Health Actions will allow doctors to book appointments, summarize patient information and send referrals by prompting AI with conversational language."
"Administrative workloads are a major problem for clinicians across the US health-care system. A survey published (via CNBC) by Athenahealth in February found that more than 90% of physicians report feeling burned out on a regular basis, largely because of the paperwork they are expected to complete."
"I used to be part of an admissions committee for a medical school. When I interviewed idealistic young people applying to medical school, 'typing' and 'filling out forms' was never once mentioned as a reason for becoming a physician."
She goes on to describe using AI for prior authorization letters that have to be written to insurance companies. These require a letter to be written to justify the use of a drug or therapy for a specific patient and to contain details of that specific patient and why that patient needs that therapy. These are frequently rejected by the insurance companies and have to be re-written over and over to eventually get approval. "A third of medical offices employ full-time staff to take care of the average 30 prior authorizations per physician per week."
On the flip side, "the insurers have started to use AI to deny claims more quickly."
Another use is referral letters from one physician to another. "Like prior authorization letters, these are pretty formulaic."
But the thing she has the most enthusiasm for is what she calls "ambient scribes". "Ambient scribes" are AI systems that listen in to the conversation between the patient and the physician and create a templated note for the medical record. "This technology allows physicians to avoid looking at a screen and typing while they're trying to connect with a patient."
"I've tried versions from multiple AI scribe companies (including TORTUS AI, which - full disclosure - I consult for) and they do an amazing job of filtering out irrelevant information and putting the information in the right spot."
"Think of the technological challenge inherent in this process: patient visits are often interrupted by clinic staff or phone calls, meander off into conversations about kids and dogs, and use abbreviations and technical jargon. They're often circular, meaning a patient will mention a symptom and the physician won't ask a follow up question about it until several minutes later. These tools produce a full transcript that uses generative AI to find the important information and put it into a form that's indistinguishable from what a physician would actually type. Many of my friends have reported that ambient scribes actually do a better job of including important details than they would have included themselves."
Will AI save physicians and clinicians time and from burnout?
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