Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to automate tedious tasks in many industries. At a time when healthcare experts are declaring physician burnout a public health crisis, can AI reduce doctors’ workload and improve their wellbeing?
How AI Can Reduce Physician Burnout
Advances in artificial intelligence technology are rapidly changing healthcare. Let’s explore three already available AI technologies that can help reduce physician burnout.
Inbox Management
Physicians spend considerable time responding to patient queries, coordinating with other healthcare providers, or handling administrative messages. Early evidence suggests that AI can ease the workload by drafting responses to patient messages.
A Stanford Health Care team recently piloted using AI to streamline inbox management. After five weeks and nearly 13,000 patient messages, clinicians drafting messages with AI reported lower task load and emotional exhaustion. Researchers concluded that drafting patient messages with generative AI can reduce physician burnout.
The authors of the JAMA article noted that using AI to draft responses didn’t change users’ average inbox management time. However, physicians were using an early version of GPT that was not trained on medical literature. The HIPAA-compliant AI tool was given only limited context from the patient’s EHR or previous draft messages. With more fine-tuned software, it’s likely doctors could see substantial efficiency gains.
AI Can Reduce the Clinical Documentation Burden
Administrative tasks like documentation are significant contributors to physician burnout. Most physicians believe EHRs contribute to burnout, and in surveys, doctors consistently rank administrative tasks as their least favorite part of their work. What if AI could ease the clinical documentation burden?
Ambient Clinical Intelligence (ACI), often called AI medical scribes, offers a groundbreaking solution to this problem. Here’s how they work.
The doctor walks into an exam room to see a patient. The provider asks permission to document the conversation using software on their smartphone so they don’t have to take notes during the visit (patients nearly always say “OK”). The ACI system uses advanced speech recognition and natural language processing to understand and transcribe the conversation and drafts a clinical note available in less than 30 seconds. The physician reviews and edits the note before saving it to the EHR.
In early reports, doctors using AI scribes like Conveyor and DAX say they are finalizing their notes in much less time than before. Doctors shared this feedback with AAMC for an article about artificial intelligence reducing burnout:
“Our clinicians feel that it helps them to declutter their mind during the visit, to stay focused on the patient rather than focusing on the computer. And I don’t think we can understate the value.”
David McSwain, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Informatics Officer at UNC Health Care
“I realized how much of my brain I had devoted to being a transcriptionist. I was slowing myself down, getting in my own way. When my fingers were not as quick as the conversation, I had to tell [patients] to stop talking so I could finish [typing].”
Eric Poon, MD, MPH, Primary Care Doctor at Duke University Health System
“We have [doctors] who have said, ‘I have freed up more time to provide better access for patients. And we’ve had people who said, ‘Now I’m able to cook dinner, spend more time with my family.’”
Matthew Anderson, MD, Provider at Atrium Health
Clinical Decision Support
Clinical decision support systems powered by AI can assist physicians in diagnosing and treating patients. These systems analyze large datasets to offer evidence-based recommendations, ensuring physicians can access the latest medical knowledge and research.
Radiology is a prominent, well-established example. AI algorithms can analyze medical images, such as X-rays or MRIs, to detect anomalies with high accuracy. For instance, an AI system might identify early signs of cancer that the human eye could miss. This support not only aids in more accurate diagnoses but also reduces physicians’ cognitive load, allowing them to make better-informed decisions without the added stress of exhaustive manual analysis.
Healthier Physicians, Better Healthcare
Burnout affects roughly half of U.S. physicians and has serious implications for medical professionals, their families, and broader public health. By streamlining relatively structured tasks like patient communication and clinical documentation, AI can decrease cognitive workload and free physicians to practice at the top of their license.
Incorporating AI tools can also improve patient interactions by untethering doctors from the EHR. When providers aren’t worrying about taking notes in real-time, they can better focus on what they do best: providing compassionate, high-quality patient care.
As technology advances, more providers and health systems will find thoughtful ways to incorporate AI-based tools. AI is a critical tool in the suite of solutions needed to resolve healthcare’s administrative burden and create a healthier and more sustainable healthcare system.