Technologies for reducing chart review burden
Research shows AI can help you spend less time on charts and more time preparing to see patients.
What is an AI assistant?
AI assistants use artificial intelligence to quickly do work that would otherwise require substantial human time and effort. Clinicians using AI assistants are able to better care for their patients, and AI has the potential to greatly benefit physicians and the medical industry as a whole.
Among the specific burdens AI assistants have been shown to reduce is reviewing disparate records and summarizing a patient’s care history before or during a visit. In a matter of seconds, an AI assistant can review the entire chart and accessible records—including labs, diagnostics, referrals, consult notes, discharge summaries and scanned documents—and provide the clinician with a solution-oriented chart summary that identifies missing diagnoses and gaps in care, including the appropriate billing and risk adjustment codes.
Pros:
- Saves time for physicians in prepping for patient visits
- Reduces need to navigate the electronic health record (EHR) for the right data
- Supports accurate and complete coding
Cons:
- Requires integration with the EHR
- Incurs additional subscription cost
AAFP Innovation Labs partner: Navina
How do AI assistants work?
AI assistants use proprietary models built on language primary care physicians actually use. They match data from a vast amount of information—consults, hospital notes, lab results, medications, claims and so on—with the appropriate terminology. This information is then classified and interpreted to produce contextual, predictive insights that can be easily explained and linked back to the source.
By analyzing vast amounts of patient data, AI algorithms can help doctors make more informed diagnoses and treatment decisions. AI-powered tools can then assist with administrative tasks, freeing up physicians' time to focus on more critical aspects of patient care.
Physicians who say addressing administrative burdens is the biggest area of opportunity for AI
What can my practice expect from an AI assistant?
AAFP Innovation Labs conducted testing in practices using EHRs with application programming interfaces that allow for interoperability. The AI assistant demonstrated three major impacts on physician clinical review: it saved time, provided thorough review and supported improved value-based care.
Among the positive effects: Physicians reported feeling more prepared for patient visits, having saved valuable prep time while knowing they'd get a thorough review of all available records. They reported having better information at the point of care and said their personal satisfaction had improved.
Family physicians use many different EHRs, creating a potential barrier for integration and slowing the implementation of third-party innovations. The AAFP advocates for standards that allow robust data exchange with EHRs, clearing the way for innovations with the potential to optimize the family medicine experience.
Results
The dramatic improvements that family physicians reported when using AI assistants suggest that such a tool could become essential to chart review.
Below are quantitative results from a 30-day trial for 10 clinicians before and after adopting Navina's AI assistant solution. The results present anecdotal evidence of these clinicians' experiences based on their reported levels of practice satisfaction, burden and burnout. A larger-scale trial with more than 100 family physicians is the next step toward validating that AI is essential for family medicine.
Decreased burnout
- I enjoy my work. I have no symptoms of burnout.
- I am under stress, but I don’t feel burned out.
- I am definitely burning out.
- I think about work frustrations a lot. It won’t go away.
- I feel completely burned out. I may need to seek help.
Significant time savings
Clinicians reported an average of 14.1 minutes before and 5.5 minutes after the use of the AI assistant. This was a 61% decrease in the amount of time physicians spent preparing for a visit.
Being fully prepared
Clinicians reported they were fully prepared for 54% of their visits before and for 81% after the use of an AI assistant, a 27% increase.
Identifying gaps in care
Clinicians reported they identified gaps in care in 72% of their patient visits, which increased to 93% after the use of an AI assistant.