Main image courtesy of Health-E3.

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AI automation in healthcare has been making a big impact, especially in the last few years. This is thanks in part to the rise of useful tools like ambient medical scribes, automating the patient journey, and the ability to get faster results from tests or diagnostics. You’ll find AI applications in many of the multiple workflow operations that exist in healthcare facilities, whether that’s billing, patient management, supplies, or care coordination. We’re taking a closer look at how AI has benefited both patients and providers including:

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• How AI automation is used in healthcare
• The benefits of AI in healthcare
• What the future may hold for AI automation in healthcare

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You’ll find AI tools in lots of healthcare settings, and 66% of healthcare providers reported using some form of AI in their practice in 2024, which is a big increase from just 33% in 2023. That’s a large jump, and we can only expect to see that number continue to rise as the technology keeps improving and there are new ways in which it can assist clinicians with care.

How is AI automation used in healthcare?

Where will you find AI automation in the healthcare field?

Although you may not realize it, AI automation is doing a lot of behind the scenes jobs in the healthcare field—and continuing to help patients and health systems. Advances in automation continue to use technology and processes to perform a variety of tasks with little human input. These tasks can range from assisting with the billing cycle, to reading diagnostics, transcribing patient encounters, and providing tools for the patient journey. These helpful applications make the workplace processes of a healthcare facility much more efficient, and they make it a lot easier for staff and providers to do their jobs and face fewer obstacles.

The purpose of AI and automation is to take some of the tasks off the plate of healthcare workers, who are already overburdened and faced with burnout a lot of the time. Making their lives easier by taking away repetitive, tedious, or time-consuming activities provides a lot of benefits and can improve the care of patients. You’ll find AI automation is already doing so much to alleviate the cognitive load of clinicians, while at the same time working to include patients in their healthcare journey—and provide better outcomes thanks to data analysis.

Administrative

AI scribes

Some of the most time-consuming tasks are administrative, for both providers and the staff. While these duties are very important and need to be done in order to ensure the business workflow progresses, there is a better, more efficient way to complete them. One of these tasks is ensuring that patients’ notes are completed with accurate information each time there is an encounter. Patient notes are a critical part of their health record, and include updates, past treatments, and medical history. Typically clinicians would need to take their tablet or laptop into the encounter with the patient, and type up the note as the patient speaks, diverting their attention and potentially missing important information.

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Asking providers to do two things at once can lead to two major problems:

• The patient feels like their doctor isn’t really listening to their questions and concerns because they are busy typing
• The provider has to both listen and type at the same time, which can lead to issues with accuracy

If the note isn’t completed by the end of the encounter, then the practitioner will need to ensure they’re done at the end of the day, or on their own personal time. Having notes back up this much can cause them to bring work home, and increase their chances of feeling overwhelmed—which can lead to burnout.

Instead of asking providers to do this, why not find a better way with AI? Enter AI automation in the form of ambient medical scribes, which can transform the whole note-taking process. AI scribes are an application that listens to the patient's encounter, and transcribes the information in real time, creating a better, comprehensive note in the correct format. This allows providers to have a conversation with their patient, to be fully engaged, and have a note ready by the end of the appointment.

This is not only a time-saving alternative to typing notes themselves, it gives clinicians time back into their day, and allows them to continue to build strong relationships with their patients.

• Need an AI scribe that can transcribe notes and automate the patient journey? Consider checking out all that Playback Health has to offer!

Billing help

Another administrative task that gets complicated quickly and requires a high level of accuracy is the billing and revenue cycle. A lot of facilities already have some level of billing automation, but there is always room to engage more AI automation to ensure greater efficiency. Having an automated program that can determine that patients are pre-approved for procedures or treatments (or are not), automatically assign billing codes during the appointment, and manage both claim submission and denial management could be extremely helpful.

Streamlining the billing process with AI results in more approved claims, as those that are deemed likely for denial can be flagged for review before submission. This reduces the amount of time a human has to spend dealing with the claims process, and results in higher degrees of accuracy and less errors. 

Document management

It’s incredibly time consuming to have staff enter patient information (not to mention error-prone) from forms. Instead, AI can be used to extract information from scanned documents to include in the patient’s EHR. Having everything organized in one place in the EHR system also means this information is easy to share not only with other team members, but with outside facilities like specialists and labs. Creating a document workflow that’s flexible and shareable is a major benefit of including AI automation in healthcare.

When staff members no longer need to worry about inputting information or filling out forms manually, they can concentrate on other patient-centric tasks that require their immediate attention—instead of breaking focus.

Diagnostics and treatments

Another classification of tasks that benefit from AI automation are those that are considered preventative in nature. This includes the analysis of a variety of diagnostic images such as MRIs, x-rays, and CT scans. Although providers and specialists can do this and find anomalies and tell-tale signs of the symptoms of disease, it can take much longer and there’s always the potential that they might miss something. Using an AI algorithm to pass through the images is extremely helpful, and can save a lot of valuable clinician time that can be better spent elsewhere.

AI can quickly and accurately sift through images at a high rate of speed, and flag any issues or items that might need a second glance. Instead of humans taking hours to do this, the machine can do it in seconds, yielding results and providing insights much sooner. Providers can then use this information to take a closer look, or start to develop a treatment outlook.

In addition to using AI for diagnostic purposes, it can also provide treatment suggestions and the potential outlooks of those scenarios based on the personalized data of each particular patient. Personalized treatment plans are essential to providing care with positive outcomes. The practitioner can then use these insights and information to decide what course is best for each individual patient.

Risk assessments

There are AI systems that can review patient data and past medical and family histories, and make an assessment about the potential they have for developing chronic conditions or other diseases. Using this data, it can analyze the percent chance the patient has of developing these conditions, and create plans of care or suggest treatments that might help lower those chances.

For those patients that are already managing chronic conditions, personalized plans of care involve helping the patient manage these issues themselves. This means keeping them informed of helpful screenings or tests, and suggesting helpful interventions like medication reminders. 

Robotics

You’ll also find a lot of AI automation in the form of robotics. Although robots have assisted healthcare professionals for decades, the technology has finally advanced to the level where robots can perform surgical procedures themselves. They can also assist surgeons by creating plans for them to follow that have calculated the highest chances of success with minimal damage. Additionally, AI can be used for teaching, helping medical students learn using VR with life-like images.

Data analysis

AI automation can also benefit not just the patient, but the health of populations as a whole. Using large amounts of patient information and data, AI can analyze it to determine trends, predict risks of populations, which can help personalize care even further. 

Benefits of AI in healthcare

What are the benefits of including AI in healthcare?

There are many more ways in which AI automation is helping out the healthcare field, and it seems that new technology is being implemented each year. AI is only expected to increase its presence, and providers are steadily becoming more familiar with its benefits. 

• Better outcomes for patients and providers. Perhaps the most important part of including AI in healthcare is that it is proven to provide better outcomes for both patients and providers. Patients are getting highly personalized treatment plans and have the full focus and attention of providers during encounters. Providers also have a valuable tool when it comes to diagnosing issues, and can rely on the insights that the AI provides to assist with their decision making. 

• Lowers costs. AI programs can provide better coding for the billing cycle, ensuring that all potential costs are recovered. It can also make sure that patients don’t miss their appointments by sending reminders not only for appointments, but for screenings or therapies based on the patient’s medical information. This can reduce the long term cost of treating them.

• Improves population health. AI processes can help patients play a role in their own health journey, with greater access to helpful devices that allow them to monitor chronic conditions remotely, instead of always needing to come into the office.

• Streamlines processes. Taking repetitive tasks off the shoulders of staff and providers ensures they can be more focused on patient care. Having AI take care of these essential duties ensures they’re done quickly and with greater accuracy. Additionally, improved access to patient data means it’s much easier to share across systems, ensuring that the entire healthcare team has the most up to date information. This way, results can be shared amongst disparate facilities and treatment can start sooner. 

What is the future of AI automation in healthcare?

AI is going to continue to help providers with decisions on patient care, by providing insights and suggestions based on data analysis. This won’t take away from clinicians making decisions about patient care, but will simply augment it so that the best possible course of treatment for that patient is followed. It could also play a larger role in remote devices for patients, which help monitor issues and provide more data for analysis. AI can hopefully be adapted to start to recognize symptoms (or the potential for them) years in advance, helping patients get diagnoses sooner so that treatment can begin faster.

Where will you engage with AI automation in healthcare?

The future looks bright when it comes to AI automation in healthcare, which will only expand and become more widespread. But AI automation is already making a big difference in the daily workflows of healthcare establishments both large and small. AI can make a real difference when it comes to improving patient outcomes and helping clinicians provide the best care possible. What kinds of AI automation will you use at your healthcare practice?