CHICAGO — On a recent day, it was easy to overlook Dr. Robert Gray’s rapid movements as he began and ended patient visits by tapping the screen of his smartphone.
However, Gray claimed that his life has been transformed by those quick finger taps. During his sessions, he was tapping an app that captures conversations. Artificial intelligence then finds pertinent material, summarizes it, and instantly enters it into each patient’s electronic medical record.
Every visit was being painstakingly recorded by the system, saving Gray the trouble.
“I love my job so much more now,” said Gray, a hand surgeon at Endeavor Health. He is no longer attempting to consult with patients while using a computer to summarize the encounters. “I don’t feel like I’m being struck by a vehicle every day.
Doctor’s offices in the Chicago area and nationwide are quickly adopting this technology, which may soon be a common feature of medical visits. By significantly reducing the amount of time doctors spend on documentation, local health care leaders think the technology will help fight physician fatigue and enhance patient experiences. According to health care officials, doctors will be able to spend more time looking patients in the eye during appointments rather than glancing at computer screens.
It enables them to return home to be with their loved ones or to give their whole attention to the patient,” stated Dr. Nadim Ilbawi, Endeavor’s system medical director of ambulatory innovation.
Since September, over 50 primary care physicians and specialists at Endeavor have been utilizing the ambient listening technology, which is produced by a business called Abridge.
Generative AI note-taking solutions have been further advanced by other regional health systems.
About 300 doctors at Northwestern Medicine use DAX Copilot, a comparable Microsoft product, and roughly 100 clinicians at Rush University System for Health use both DAX Copilot and a different company’s technology. About 1,300 doctors use DAX Copilot at Advocate Health Care in Illinois and Aurora Health Care in Wisconsin, and roughly 550 clinicians use the Abridge technology at UChicago Medicine. Kaiser Permanente and Johns Hopkins Medicine are two healthcare systems outside of Illinois that have committed to providing Abridge throughout their systems.
Although the technologies are currently primarily utilized in the Chicago area for patient appointments in offices and clinics, a number of local systems have stated that they intend to soon make them available to doctors in emergency rooms, urgent care centers, nurses, and those who provide care for patients who are hospitalized overnight. According to the systems’ leaders, the technologies have so far produced positive outcomes, and some say they intend to eventually make them available to all of their providers.
Dr. Nirav S. Shah, Endeavor’s assistant chief medical informatics officer for AI and innovation, predicted that it would soon become commonplace.
Health systems claim that doctors have so far been free to choose to use it and that they do not anticipate requiring providers to do so. Patients can also choose not to participate.
At the beginning of the appointment, the physician or other medical staff member will usually ask the patient if they are comfortable using the equipment. If the patient thinks it’s okay, the doctor will typically use a phone app to access it. The software will begin recording when the doctor taps the screen of their phone.
After recording the audio of the chat, the Abridge app transcribes it. The recording and the transcription are not saved on the doctor’s phone; instead, they are transferred to a cloud. Artificial intelligence creates notes on the appointment in the patient’s electronic medical record by filtering out the irrelevant and irrelevant elements of the conversation, such as discussions about socioeconomic and medical issues.
Before approving them, the physician checks the notes in the medical file to ensure they are correct and allows for revisions. Only the medical record remains when the audio or transcript of the appointment is eventually erased.
According to Gray, no patient has rejected the technology thus far. Since he began employing the technology, Dr. Douglas Dorman, a family medicine specialist at Advocate Health Care in Yorkville, reported that fewer than ten of his patients have rejected the concept.
It sounded like a decent concept to help doctors offer patients more of their undivided attention, according to Catherine Gregory, who recently saw Gray after having surgery for a fractured arm.
Gregory, 62, of Chicago, said, “I’m for it because I want his attention on me, especially if I’m in pain today.” I don’t want you to miss anything I have to say about my suffering.
Robert Johnston, 61, a patient from West Rogers Park, claimed that before to seeing Gray, he had never heard of the technology. He was initially concerned that it might be invasive, particularly if he were speaking with a doctor about a delicate subject. However, he said that he could see how it may improve the rapport between patients and physicians.
Regarding doctors, he stated, “It’s much better when they’re able to speak directly to me.” “I think it’s a great idea as long as privacy concerns are protected.”
According to local health systems, the businesses they selected to provide the technologies had to adhere to the privacy and security standards of the systems. In recent years, hacks and breaches have become frequent at health systems around the nation.
Dr. Betsy Winga, vice president of medical informatics and chief medical informatics officer for Advocate Health Care and Aurora Health Care, stated, “It was definitely evaluated strongly because we take security very, very, very seriously.”
“From a clinician experience standpoint, the benefit we have seen from it is just priceless,” she said, adding that she was unable to share the technology’s prices.
In general, patients appear to value it, or at least what it means for their contacts with Advocate, according to Dorman. He claimed that patients have commented on how calm and peaceful he appears to be.
Every day, I return to work feeling rejuvenated and thrilled to be there,” Dorman remarked. “I genuinely believe it enhances my manner.”
In some ways, the technology has allowed doctors to go back to a time in medicine when they didn’t have to spend as much time documenting procedures. A federal law that was passed in 2009 encouraged the adoption of electronic medical records as a means of improving patient safety, increasing patient privacy, and making records more freely available. Subsequently, providers who failed to employ them effectively were subject to penalties from the federal government. Physicians report that the volume of data they have to enter into the records has increased with time.
Doctors are sometimes left with two options: attempt to record patients’ visits during their appointments or complete their paperwork at the end of the day, which frequently requires hours of additional labor.
In 2023, physicians reported an average workweek of 59 hours, with almost eight hours of that time spent on administrative duties, according to a poll conducted by the American Medical Association. Approximately 48% of physicians who took part in the American Medical Association survey said they had at least one burnout symptom.
“Pajama time” is the term used by physicians and other health care executives to describe time spent on administrative duties after work. Advocate Health Care found a roughly 15% reduction in pajama time, while Northwestern saw a 17% drop among its practitioners who employed the AI note-taking tool.
Dorman, who works at Advocate, stated that he used to work on documentation after hours for 20 to 25 hours every week. He claimed that in the past, he was the last person to leave the office every day. He now claimed to dedicate roughly thirty minutes per week to the effort. “Life-changing” is how he described the technology.
Prior to the technology, pediatrician Dr. Melissa Holmes of Rush would type some of her notes during the day and some at home after her children had gone to bed. Although she still works on some projects in the evenings, she claimed that reviewing and editing the AI remarks takes a lot less time than typing all of her own.
She added that the technology has enabled her to be more present with her patients.
Holmes, who also serves as the system’s associate chief medical information officer, said, “I used to feel kind of tied to my computer screen because I didn’t want to miss anything.” Instead than typing it in and then looking at it, I can now be at the parent’s bedside looking at it with them when they point out anything about their child that worries them.
