Dive Brief:
Artificial intelligence-backed notetaking assistants are likely reducing clinician burnout, but the tools’ financial impact for health systems is still unclear, according to an analysis published this week by the Peterson Health Technology Institute.
Early adopters of the scribes, which typically record providers’ conversations with patients and draft a clinical note, report they appear to lessen burnout and cognitive load associated with documentation. The tools could also improve patient experience by ensuring clinicians don’t have to focus on taking notes during an appointment.
But there’s still limited evidence on the scribes’ effect on productivity and financial performance, according to the PHTI report. Still, health systems said savings could arise as the technology and implementation process improve.
Dive Insight:
About 60 AI scribes are currently being rolled out in the healthcare sector, according to the PHTI analysis. The field is crowded, with tech giants like Microsoft and Oracle offering their own tools alongside startups including Abridge, Nabla and Suki.
Adoption of the documentation tools has been uncharacteristically fast for the industry, which is often beset with long sales cycles and implementation plans, PHTI wrote in the report, which included interviews with health system leaders, technology companies and industry experts participating in its AI task force.
The promise of the notetaking assistants is significant for health systems and clinicians. Providers have long struggled with a heavy workload of administrative tasks they say stretch into their personal time and impede patient care.
The “driving force” behind many health systems’ decisions to adopt AI documentation products is reducing clinician burnout — a major concern for organizations facing workforce shortages, according to the report.
And the tools could be having an impact. In one example, Mass General Brigham, one participant in the AI task force, reported a 40% relative reduction in burnout during a six-week survey pilot. Providers at Washington-based MultiCare reported a 63% reduction in burnout and a 64% improvement in work-life balance.
“Ambient documentation has proven to be one of the most effective and impactful methods for enhancing the provider experience,” Adam Landman, chief information officer at Mass General Brigham, said in a statement.
Health system leaders said the scribes could improve care too, allowing physicians to focus their attention on the patient rather than a computer screen. One study by the Permanente Medical Group found that 81% of surveyed patients reported their physician spent less time looking at their computer when using an AI scribe.
However, health systems aren’t seeing clear impact in financial metrics, like the number of patients that providers have time to see or the accuracy of billing codes.
Currently, finances often aren’t the main reason for implementing a documentation tool, according to the report. Still, some health systems expect that clinics could eventually add more patients as they increase adoption of the AI scribes — but others argued increasing patient load could reverse the tools’ progress when it comes to burnout.
Among clinicians, actual uptake of the AI scribes varies. Use is typically divided into three groups: A cohort of clinicians who utilize them frequently, a group that uses the product for some visits and another cohort that rarely or never uses the documentation assistant, according to the analysis.
Once a scribe is widely available, adoption rates are between 20% to 50%, according to the analysis.
