Environmental clinical documents steal the show | Wilnesh News

The hottest new technology for doctors promises to revive an age-old health care practice: talking to patients face-to-face.

Environmental clinical documentation was a hot topic on the show floor this week as more than 30,000 health and technology professionals gathered under palm trees at the HIMSS conference in Orlando, Florida.

This technology enables doctors to record their visits with patients with mutual consent. Using artificial intelligence, conversations are automatically transformed into clinical notes and summaries. Companies such as Microsoft-owned Nuance Communications, Abridge and Suki have developed solutions with these capabilities, which they believe will help reduce physicians’ administrative workload and prioritize meaningful connections with patients.

“After seeing the patient, I have to write notes, place orders, think about the patient summary,” Abridge founder and CEO Dr. Shiv Rao told CNBC at HIMSS. “So what our technology does is allow me to focus on my The person in front of me — the most important person, the patient — because when I click start, have a conversation, and then click stop, I can swivel my chair in a matter of seconds and the note is right there.”

Administrative workload is a major issue facing clinicians in the U.S. healthcare system. A survey released by Athenahealth in February found that more than 90% of doctors reported feeling burned out “often”, primarily because of the paperwork they needed to complete.

The survey showed that more than 60% of doctors said they felt overwhelmed by paperwork and therefore worked an average of 15 hours a week outside of normal working hours to keep up. Many in the industry refer to this work-from-home experience as “pajama time.”

Because administrative work is mostly bureaucratic and does not directly impact physicians’ decisions about diagnosis or patient care, it is one of the first areas where health systems have seriously begun exploring generative AI applications. As a result, environmental clinical documentation solutions are having their real moment in the sun.

“There’s no better place than this,” Kenneth Harper, general manager of Microsoft’s DAX Copilot, said in an interview with CNBC.

Microsoft’s Nuance released a preview version of its environmental clinical documentation tool Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX) Express last March.By September, the solution, now called DAX Copilot, was released generally available. Harper said more than 200 organizations are currently using the technology.

Microsoft acquired Nuance in 2021 for about $16 billion.The company has a two-story booth on the show floor that is often packed with attendees

Harper said the technology could save doctors several minutes per visit, but the exact numbers vary by specialty. He said his team gets feedback about the service almost daily from doctors who claim it has helped them take better care of themselves and even saved their marriages.

Harper recounted a conversation with a doctor who was considering retiring after practicing for more than three decades. Years of stress had left the doctor exhausted, but after being introduced to DAX Copilot, he was inspired to continue working, he said.

“He said, ‘I really think I’m going to practice for another 10 years because I really love what I do,'” Harper said. “This is just a personal anecdote of how this has impacted our care team.”

HIMSS, Stanford University Health Care declare It is deploying DAX Copilot across the enterprise.

Gary Fritz, director of applications at Stanford University Health Care, said the organization was initially testing the tool in its exam rooms. He said Stanford University recently surveyed doctors about their use of DAX Copilot, and 96 percent found it easy to use.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen numbers that big,” Fritz told CNBC. “It’s a big deal.”

Dr. Christopher Sharp, chief medical information officer at Stanford University Health Care and one of the doctors testing DAX Copilot, said its use is “very seamless.” He said the tool’s immediacy and reliability were very accurate and powerful, but could be improved in capturing patient tone.

Sharp said he believes the tool has saved him time with files and changed the way he spends that time. For example, he said that he often read and edited his notes rather than wrote them, so the work was not completely lost.

Sharp said that in the short term, he would like to see more personalization capabilities in DAX Copilot, both on a personal and professional level. Even so, he said it was easy to see its value from the start.

“The moment that first document comes back to you and you see your own words and the patient’s own words reflected directly back to you in a usable way, I would say from that moment on, you’re hooked,” Sharp told CNBC. Yes.” In an interview.

Fritz said it’s still early in the product life cycle and Stanford Health Care is still working out the specifics of deployment. He said DAX Copilot may be rolled out for specific professional segments.

In January, Nuance announced general availability DAX Copilot within Epic System’s electronic health record (EHR).Most doctors use EHRs to create and manage patient records, and Epic is this largest supplier According to May report, by U.S. hospital market share Klass Research.

Integrating a tool like DAX Copilot directly into physicians’ EHR workflows means they don’t need to switch applications to access it, which helps save time and further reduce their paperwork burden, Harper said.

Seth Hain, Epic’s senior vice president of research and development, told CNBC that more than 150,000 notes have been drafted Environmental technology has been integrated into the company’s software since last year’s HIMSS conference. And the technology is expanding rapidly. Hain said there will be more notes drafted in 2024 than in 2023.

“You’re going to see health systems that have gone through an intentional process of adapting end users to this technology and are now starting to roll it out very quickly,” he said.

A company called Abridge has also integrated its ambient clinical documentation technology directly into Epic. Abridge declined to disclose the exact number of health organizations using its technology. California-based UCI Health is rolling out its solution system-wide, the company announced at HIMSS.

Abridge CEO Rao said the speed with which the healthcare industry has adopted environmental clinical documentation feels “historic.”

Abridge announced US$30 million According to reports, the company completed a $150 million Series C round of financing in October, led by Spark Capital, four months later Released in February. Rao said tailwinds like physician burnout have turned into a “tornado” for Abridge, which will use the funds to continue investing in the science behind the technology and explore where to go next.

Rao said the company has saved some doctors as much as three hours a day and has automated more than 92% of the paperwork it focuses on. Abridge’s technology covers 55 majors and 14 languages, he added.

Abridge has a Slack channel called “Love Stories,” which CNBC watched, where the team shares the positive feedback they get about their technology. This week, I received a message from a doctor who said Abridge helped them get rid of their least favorite part of their job, saving them about an hour and a half every day.

“This kind of feedback will definitely inspire everyone in the company,” Rao said.

Suki CEO Punit Soni said the environmental clinical documentation market is “hot.” He expects rapid growth to continue in the coming years, but, like all hype cycles, he thinks the dust has settled.

Soni founded Suki more than six years ago after assuming a need for a digital assistant to help doctors manage clinical documents. Soni said Suki is currently used by more than 30 professionals in about 250 health organizations across the country. He added that six “large health systems” have gone live with Suki in the past two weeks.

“For four to five years, I basically sat there with the store open and hoped someone would show up. Now the whole mall is here and there are people outside the door who want to deploy,” Sony told CNBC at HIMSS. “It’s very, very exciting to be here.”

Suki’s website It says its technology can reduce the time doctors spend taking notes by an average of 72%.The company raised $55 million A 2021 funding round led by March Capital. Sony said it may raise another round of funding in the second half of this year.

Sony said Suki is focused on deploying its technology at scale and exploring other applications, such as how environment files can be used to help caregivers. Suki will soon be available in Spanish, he said, and customers should expect most major languages ​​to follow.

“There’s a lot that needs to happen,” he said. “In the next decade, all healthcare technology will look completely different.”