Increasingly, clinicians are harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to work smarter, recovering time and energy previously spent on administrative tasks to focus on the most important function of their work – caring for patients.
UTMB providers have been part of a pilot program with AI tools since last June. These products, which include DAX Copilot under the Microsoft Nuance umbrella, serve as AI assistants for clinical documentation and workflows, and so far, have proven effective at reducing the administrative burden on clinicians.
“One of the biggest complaints physicians have, of course, is having to become a typist,” says Carlos Clark, DO, an Internal Medicine physician who serves as Associate Chief Physician Executive for the Faculty Group Practice and Chief Medical Information Officer for UTMB Health System.
“I'm able to look at the patient and have a conversation eye to eye with them as opposed to before, where I was kind of looking back and forth between them and the computer,” he says. “It's a much more personal type of process we're having with these ambient dictation tools now.”
The AI tool operates via the Haiku mobile app through integration with the EHR, Epic. With the patient’s consent, the physician opens the app on their phone to securely capture notes from a conversation that go beyond a voice-to-text function. It gathers information spoken by everyone in the room, determines the most important information, and provides a structured clinical summary in real-time.
Dr. Clark says over the past year, he has seen the tools become better at discerning what pieces of a conversation are most relevant. Through each new DAX Copilot implementation, UTMB users have had the opportunity to provide feedback to the company about what is working and what needs improvement.
Dr. Clark has seen a high adoption rate among users at UTMB. The UTMB providers who have used the product represent a variety of primary and specialty care areas, including Orthopedics, Urology, Pediatrics, and several medicine subspecialties. Across the board, the feedback has been largely positive.
“It's a wonderful tool because it allows physicians to take care of documentation without having to write or type the notes during the visit, which can make it very impersonal when you're taking care of patients, versus having to write it outside of the visit, which takes time as well,” Dr. Clark says.
Since the pilot began, users have already seen valuable improvements to the program. Dr. Clark is optimistic about the potential for further enhancements – for example, generating English-language notes from his conversations with Spanish-speaking patients, placing orders through the app, and additional support for inpatient and emergency department encounters.