How AI is meeting the challenges in a new era of health care

The health care industry is at an inflection point. Think of the technological impacts ushered in by the internet and the first smartphones, or the likely impact when the first fully autonomous vehicle takes the road. In 2024, the health care industry finds itself in a similar position, on the cusp of its next technological transformation.

Assessing the next technological transformation

Now we are witnessing the dawn of the next technological transformation, one that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to shape the design, implementation, and use of health care IT tools and systems that promise to improve outcomes for patients, payers, and physicians.

To better understand how and where AI-powered solutions can help solve key industry challenges, eClinicalWorks conducted a survey in the spring of 2024, collecting more than 120 responses from health care professionals from across the nation.

The responses focused on four key areas where AI can deliver practical, day-to-day improvements for physicians and their staff: Documentation, the fax in-box, improving interoperability, and reducing no-shows.

What the data tell us

• 41% of responding providers spend four+ hours a day on administrative tasks, including clinical documentation, leaving many providers overworked and at risk for burnout.
• 68% of respondents cite fax volume and complexity as challenges, as faxes remain a key source of patient data and it can be difficult to extract relevant data from long, complex faxes.
• 85% of providers prize interoperability, as the ability to access data from other organizations and health systems at the point of care facilitates better decision-making.
• 64% of providers average more than 10 no-shows weekly, each of which is both a lost opportunity to provide care and has a negative impact on practice revenue.

Why the best time to adopt AI tools is now

These results resonate across the nation. Industry studies and analyses show that the challenges that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic — worsening rates of physician burnout, backlogs of work, and inefficient workflows associated with the curtailing of office hours — have continued.

Although some decline has been seen in rates of physician burnout, a January 2024 industry survey found that 49% of physicians report they are feeling burned out. Physicians often simply do not have enough time in the day to see their patients and complete all administrative work. For those providers who are also responsible for managing their practices, the challenges can appear insurmountable.

Fortunately for physicians, these administrative sources of stress are coming into focus at a time of unparalleled innovation in health care and health care IT. The rapid advances in AI — and its application to so many areas of business and industry, including health care — make this the right moment to invest in AI-powered tool/s and training.

Fast and responsible adoption of AI is key

As that process unfolds, it is essential that responsible adoption of AI remains a priority. As good as AI tools can be, they are best used to supplement and enhance the work of physicians, who must remain the primary caregivers — as well as those best able to determine where we should seek to improve the remarkable technologies that we employ more and more each day.

Providers can experience the benefits of AI across their entire organization with multiple intelligent solutions such as digital assistants and models. Implementation is not as time-intensive or expensive as one may think.

AI solutions gaining significant traction by addressing industry challenges include:

AI medical scribes

The eClinicalWorks survey found that 51% of providers believe an AI medical scribe can save 2+ hours daily in clinical documentation time while giving them more "stethoscope time" with patients. They can listen while the AI documents symptoms, files prescription orders, and schedules appointments. And the time they save can be used to see more patients and improve work/life balance.

Image AI and inbox assistants

Inbox assistants can sort long and complex faxes to find clinically relevant information for each patient, saving providers time and money and allowing them to spend their time on other, more timely work. Image AI can also speed up the check-in process with facial recognition technology.

Health information search engines

Health information search engines save time with each patient encounter, sparing providers from having to read through dense records and discharge summaries. AI solutions can highlight relevant information, speeding the creation of care plans. And these solutions are useful when patients switch providers, move, or change insurance providers, as their information is stored securely and shared ethically.

No-show prediction models

AI solutions analyze appointment data to assess the probability a given appointment will be a no-show. That information allows practices to employ strategies for keeping their schedules full, including reaching out to their waitlist patients. Data shows that filling one or two missed appointment slots daily can translate to approximately $50,000 in additional revenue annually.

Reinvent your practice with AI

There are three key points to remember about the AI revolution in health care.

First, while none of the AI-powered tools above is sufficient to transform the industry by itself, when unified in an integrated health care system they can lead to remarkable advances. The more tools a practice adopts, the more synergy and impact they are likely to see.

Second, the choices in the market are so many — and the pace of change in AI so rapid — that practices should focus on finding the right health care IT partner, one with deep experience, an innovative mindset, strong customer support, and families of solutions that are compatible with one another and can be easily integrated into the practice or health system as it grows.

Finally, providers should bear in mind that addressing some of today's most significant pain points — including physician burnout, financial challenges, and patient engagement — is only the beginning. Once solutions are implemented and fine-tuned, new challenges and opportunities will emerge.

Practices must understand that health care IT is always a work in progress. As our new technology-driven era unfolds, there will always be new problems to solve and new tools, many developed by AI, with which to solve them. But with every step forward, one thing will never change — the need to put the needs of patients first.

Sameer Bhat, co-founder, vice president of sales, eClinicalWorks