Main image courtesy of Daily Nurse.

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If you’re working in the healthcare field, chances are you’ve come across the increase in AI medical scribes throughout the industry. These applications are making big waves at all kinds of medical practices because they are transforming the way that clinicians can run facilities and offer care to patients. While providers have always worked to give patients the best care possible, they are now assisted by AI that uses natural language processing and deep machine learning to help take administrative tasks off the plate of overworked practitioners. 

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There are a variety of AI medical scribes out there now, so if you’re interested in learning more about them, how are you to choose? That’s exactly why in this article we’ve chosen two highly-ranked ambient medical scribes, Abridge vs. Deep Scribe AI. Once you learn more about them, you can consider using them in the future.

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• Expect to find in this article:
  
  • Why AI medical scribes are important to healthcare practices
  • What Abridge AI can offer customers
  • All you need to know about Deep Scribe AI
  • Abridge vs. Deep Scribe AI: how do you choose?

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How AI scribes can make a difference in healthcare facilities

AI has really made an impact in all kinds of medical centers

Healthcare providers in all kinds of specialities are starting to take notice of AI medical scribes. If they aren’t using one yet, chances are they have a colleague that is, or knows a facility that has started to implement them. And while at first received with a little trepidation, AI scribes are increasingly a part of everyday life for practitioners, and they can’t imagine going back to the way they used to handle tasks like note creation, patient management, and coding and billing. Some of the biggest advantages of including AI medical scribes includes:

• Decrease the amount of provider burnout. It’s no surprise that a lot of clinicians have been experiencing an increase in burnout over the years. In addition to their clinical duties that include caring for patients, providers are also responsible for charting and creating updated notes for every patient interaction. This can be incredibly time consuming, and if it doesn’t take place at the point of care during the encounter, it will need to be done after hours. Balancing both of these tasks means that clinicians can have very long days, and even see their administrative work seep into their personal time. AI scribes can eliminate the need to rely on manually creating and typing in notes, and can automatically sync and update patient information in the EHR.

• Help simplify office processes. AI applications are designed to help with a variety of administrative tasks so that providers no longer need to keep track of them. In addition to transcribing encounters and creating accurate notes in real time, AI can also assist with the patient journey, and additional tests, prescriptions, or follow up appointments can all be called in or scheduled with a few swipes or voice commands. They can also include all necessary medical coding that’s required from the visit, and start the billing cycle. All the patient information is immediately synced across the EHR system, ensuring all team members have access to updated documentation.

• Improve patient care. When practitioners are no longer creating notes and paying attention to the patient at the same time, patients feel like they are having a real conversation with their provider. Doctors can focus their attention on hearing the patient’s concerns, instead of worrying about typing up a note. This improves the doctor/patient relationship and builds additional trust.

• Customizable and scalable. Most AI medical scribes are very customizable, so you can create forms and processes that work with your practice. Lots of them offer templates to make repetitive tasks like note creation much easier, allowing providers to quickly move between tasks without forgetting any necessary information. AI scribes are also very easy to scale, and additional seats can always be added to the platform. 

The ins and outs of Abridge AI

Abridge is one of the top AI medical scribes out there for larger healthcare campuses

Abridge is designed with enterprise-level medical centers in mind, which means they can help some of the largest facilities operate more efficiently and provide a better way for clinicians to handle administrative tasks. It does this by first and foremost creating useful and billable notes for providers to use at the point of care. This means creating accurate transcription of what takes place during the patient encounter, summarizing information, and populating the note format with appropriate information. The application then can integrate with your existing EHR to update and sync information across facilities, whether it’s a hospital, clinic, or inpatient/outpatient center. 

The software is designed to help the provider offer the best care possible during the encounter, and it does that by not only transcribing the information (with a variety of language options and specialty medical language included), but by pulling in useful information from previous encounters, health system specific guidelines, as well as provider preferences. As the note continues to populate while the doctor and patient are discussing concerns, Abridge AI will start to also group medical issues together and include appropriate billing codes. Having the ability to start the billing process during the encounter is huge, as often billing is held up due to incorrect coding or missing information in the clinical note. 

The application can also provide suggested actionable outputs for the practitioner, lightening their cognitive load and allowing them to focus on more pertinent tasks. Never one to sit back, Abridge’s team has worked continuously since 2018 to help make daily tasks more efficient and more manageable for providers everywhere, not the least in some of the largest medical centers including Emory Healthcare, UPMC, the Mayo Clinic, and UChicago Medicine. The newly rolled out Contextual Reasoning Engine is able to expand on just note transcription by:

• Using contextual awareness to integrate additional patient information from previous documentation in order to create more comprehensive notes
• Adding the correct medical codes to treatments, diagnoses, and procedures in order to facilitate the billing cycle
• Capturing medical orders so that they are a part of the note and seamlessly update them within the EHR

The pros and cons of Abridge

Like all AI scribes, there are bound to be pros and cons of each. That’s why we always recommend trying out a few of these ambient scribes to see how they really work within the framework of your system.

Pros

• Abridge is a trusted partner working with a lot of medical facilities
• Integrates easily with Epic, as well as other EHRs
• Transcriptions appear at the point of care, making it easy for clinicians to make edits, add addendums, and pull up additional documentation
• Notes sync immediately with the EHR system
• Easy to scale for all sizes of healthcare facilities
• HIPAA compliant and offers Single-Sign On
• Improves the billing process by including codes as the note is created

Cons

• Can be expensive
• Is designed for larger medical centers so it may not be the right fit for smaller or medium size facilities

Abridge vs. Playback Health

If you’re looking for an AI scribe that can be scaled and can work easily with small, medium, and enterprise-level establishments, consider looking into Playback Health. This ambient medical scribe is designed to be easy to use, and can start listening and transcribing encounters from day one—no need for extensive onboarding or training. Clinicians love the 99% transcription accuracy rate, as well as the 20% increase in productivity they’ve seen as a result of using it. It lightens their cognitive load because they don’t have to worry about catching all the important details of the encounter, and the AI scribe will ensure they’re in the note and in the right format. Once approved, notes are immediately synced with an EHR system so the patient’s documentation is up to date. 

Not having to worry about diverting their attention during encounters has led to providers saving as much as three hours per day that they can choose to see more patients with, or attend to other clinical duties. Playback Health can also automate the patient journey—providing templates and reminders to seamlessly schedule additional appointments, treatments, or follow up visits. Patients feel that they have more input in their care when they have a practitioner that is focused on them during their visit instead of writing notes and updating information. 

Pros of Playback Health

• Generates accurate notes in real time
• Syncs with a variety of EHR systems
• Offers templates and macros that can be customized according to provider preference
• Competitively priced
• HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant
• Easy to use
• Can scale to a variety of sizes
• Useful to providers in all medical fields

Cons of Playback Health

• Offers only two tiers of pricing
• To get the volume discount you need more than 10 seats

Who is Deep Scribe AI?

Get to know another great option for an AI scribe

Deep Scribe AI was created in 2017 to address the very real challenges of precise medical documentation and its result on the level of patient care. They have designed an application that is very easy to use, and as it listens to the encounter, will start to transcribe a note and summarize the information. It can adapt to the workflow of your practice, and can be customized according to clinician preferences. Once the note is ready, it is seamlessly integrated into the existing EHR system and synced with all devices so team members are all up to date. There’s no extra copy/paste steps, just the correct information exactly where it’s supposed to be.

In addition to reducing documentation time by up to 75%, DeepScribe is also more accurate than manual charting, can capture complex medical information, and important information is not left out. To help improve the cumbersome billing process, this application also includes suggested billing codes at the point of care. AI scribes accurately code medical treatments and diagnoses so that the claims are more likely to be approved, increasing the efficiency of the revenue cycle. This helps move the process along instead of risking incorrect codes and potential denials. 

This AI is built with end to end encryption, offers de-identified patient data, and comes with multi-factor authentication, ensuring that this is one of the safest AI scribes on the market. So if your medical practice is looking for a way to decrease physician burnout and cognitive load, improve patient connections, and improve business processes, you may want to check out Deep Scribe AI.

The pros and cons of Deep Scribe AI

While this is a strong contender for an AI scribe, it always helps to be aware of all the advantages and disadvantages upfront.

Pros

• Can transcribe accurate notes at the point of care
• Includes billing codes to assist the revenue cycle
• Increased time savings between patients
• Very customizable 
• Integrates easily with EHR systems
• Offers context awareness
• HIPAA compliant with Single Sign-On

Cons

• Plans are custom made, so no tiers of service 
• Some reviews stated the accuracy level wasn’t exactly where they expected it to be

Abridge vs. Deep Scribe AI: Which will you choose?

Choosing an AI scribe is a personal choice that is different for every facility. You may need a large system that can be scaled to include multiple buildings, or you may just need an ambient medical scribe to reduce the time it takes to complete each note. No matter what you’re looking for help with, there’s an AI scribe out there that can assist. So take a closer look at Abridge and Deep Scribe and see if they offer you the benefits you’re looking for.

Using an AI medical scribe makes good sense

No matter if you choose to work with Abridge or Deep Scribe AI, you’re making a good choice for your healthcare establishment by integrating the power of AI to streamline workflows and improve patient care. There are a lot of benefits to including these applications into a variety of medical settings, so make sure to test out a few and see which ones work seamlessly with your staff and facility.