Main image courtesy of UAG School of Medicine.

Practicing emergency medicine can be a stressful but rewarding career for physicians and other healthcare members. These dedicated doctors treat unforeseen illnesses and injuries, oftentimes that are life threatening. Their extensive knowledge and ability to quickly diagnose problems can save patient lives, which is why it’s important that they are allowed to concentrate on their clinical tasks instead of administrative work.

• Today’s article is discussing:
  
  • How AI scribes are used in emergency medicine
  • Why it’s a good idea to use an AI scribe for emergency medicine
  • Three AI scribes emergency medicine practitioners should check out

One of the best tools that emergency medicine providers have to do this is with AI scribes. These applications have been making a difference in the lives of clinicians in all kinds of healthcare fields, including emergency medicine. Even doctors working in an emergency department need to complete their patient notes, so why not leave this task up to a more accurate AI scribe?

How can an AI scribe be useful for emergency medicine notes?

There are many ways that an AI scribe can assist doctors in this specialty

Emergency medicine operates a little differently than doctors and clinicians who see patients based on appointments. People come into an emergency department because they are experiencing symptoms of an illness or there has been an accident and they need medical assistance. This means that the applications that they use to record incidents or transcribe conversations need to keep up with the pace of emergency medicine. Typically there are no appointments here, and while some patients can wait to be seen, others simply cannot. While this type of medicine is much more fast paced, there’s still lots of ways that AI scribes can help emergency doctors.

How do AI scribes work?

AI scribes are designed to take some of the administrative burden off of providers in all kinds of healthcare specialities. A time consuming, but necessary task, of working in healthcare is creating notes for patients that are then included in their EHR. These notes encompass the scope of the visit, and any adjustments to the patient’s current treatment route. They can be repetitive, but they’re an essential part of tracking the course of the patient’s health journey.

AI is very good at doing repetitive tasks, and AI scribes can create notes from the transcription of the encounter with the patient. This leaves the doctor free to listen and interact, and no longer worry about creating the perfect note from scratch. These applications are more accurate, and they can be easily synced with EHR systems for an improved patient journey. AI scribes are so good at what they do because they can learn from large amounts of data and can be programmed with customization features as well as often-used templates to make the note creation process simple—and give back time to the provider.

• Transcribe conversations into notes. Emergency medicine providers still need to complete notes, whether that’s done after the emergency has passed, or at the end of the day. Using an AI scribe is a much better option than relying either on a human scribe to create the note, putting in notes themselves after the encounter, or at the end of the day. A lot can happen during an emergency department encounter, and the provider wants to ensure they’re focusing their entire attention on the patient. Depending on the situation, it could be a life and death outcome. Using an AI scribe, they’re able to just hit record and the scribe will format the conversation into a note form for the patient’s record.

When patients come into the ER, little may be known about them, which is why it’s so crucial for the information that is gathered to not be lost or not included in the note. The AI scribe can ensure that accurate information is included so that the provider can focus on providing relief and caring for the patient. These applications are real time savers, allowing emergency medicine practitioners to focus on the situations in front of them. 

• Assist with the medical decision making paradigm. Based on the information in the note created by the AI scribe, clinicians can quickly analyze the information and consider the potential diagnoses quickly. They can review the information collected and determine what the next (and best) course of action should be thanks to the patient's history and present illness/injury they are dealing with.

• Faster diagnoses. AI scribes can also pull up potential diagnoses to suggest to the physician based on analysis of similar patient data and the medical history of the current patient. It can analyze any diagnostics like x-rays and MRIs much more quickly and accurately than humans, letting clinicians know when an anomaly is found so that they can treat it faster. 

• Organized processes. Once the note is written, it can be easily synced or uploaded to the facility’s EHR system, ensuring that no information is lost and that everyone on the healthcare team has access to the updated information. Patient information can easily be shared with specialists if necessary as well. If the clinician needs to dictate additional information or request tests, procedures, or prescriptions, it is simple to direct the AI scribe to execute these tasks. 

Top reasons to include an AI scribe for emergency medicine notes

Do you know the benefits of including an AI scribe in your emergency facility?

By now most clinicians have heard of or know of a colleague that has used AI scribes before, and there are a wide variety to choose from. It may seem a little intimidating when you don’t know which one to pick, or you’re questioning whether or not it can really do all that it says. We’re here to tell you that there are some major benefits to incorporating an AI scribe that can perhaps make your relationship with notes and administrative tasks a little easier.

1. Reduce the prevalence of burnout

Being a clinician is a stressful job that requires a lot of your time. This seems to be the case even more so when you’re in emergency medicine. Time is always of the essence, and you need to make sure you’re always bringing your ‘A’ game to any situation. Because emergency medicine clinicians are always on from the start of their shift until the end, when they finally are ready to leave the last thing they want to worry about is notes. This extra burden is something that they’re required to do, and often leads to feelings of burnout. However, there is a better solution out there. Instead of completing notes after seeing patients (and potentially not getting all the correct information included), or filling them out at the end of the day, more and more practitioners are relying on the help of AI scribes. 

Burnout is very real among healthcare workers, including emergency department staff as it seems that workloads are only increasing. Not having a better work/life balance can lead to feelings of fatigue, and can have a negative impact on patient care. Using the power of AI to help ease the cognitive load of clinicians is a great way for them to get back to what they do best, which is treat their patients. When providers can focus solely on the patient and not on creating a note at the same time, you not only get better, more accurate notes, but you get a happier doctor and patient.

2. Create more accurate notes

One of the major reasons lots of hospitals and other healthcare facilities are starting to see more AI scribes in use is thanks to their high degree of accuracy. In emergency medicine, you need to make sure that everything is accurate, and that even includes the information in notes. After all, this is going to be a part of the patient record, and in order to provide potential life-saving treatment, the documentation needs to be correct. AI scribes are more accurate than both human medical scribes and providers when it comes to ensuring all the essential information is included. 

3. Customizable

A lot of physicians that work in the emergency department like to structure their MDMs and notes a particular way—and that’s not a problem with an AI scribe. You can adjust the fields to include additional information, and dictation is always available if more documentation is needed. Most applications are very customizable, and a lot include templates for features and formats that you use most often. AI scribes are easy to navigate and can quickly become indispensable. 

4. Syncs with EHRs

Having an application that can take a note and then with a few swipes sync it or copy/paste it to the EHR system is worth a lot to busy emergency department providers. They can not only instantly have their note ready, but it can be included into the patient’s record in no time—and everyone in the facility has access to the updated information. This allows them to move onto the next patient faster, saving time at the end of the day. 

5. Improves patient care

The goal of AI scribes is to empower providers to give the best care possible to patients. They remove some of the burden from the shoulders of clinicians, allowing them more mental space to focus on their care. This is crucial in fast-pace specialties like emergency medicine, where every moment might count. Knowing that the medical documentation is taken care of helps practitioners focus on their essential clinical role. 

AI scribes perfect for emergency medicine

There are a few AI scribes we recommend

Playback Health

Playback Health is an AI scribe that offers a great package for physicians in emergency medicine. This application has a 99% transcription accuracy, and can give providers a 20% increase in productivity, while saving them around 3 hours each day. It not only takes care of note creation, but it also automates the patient journey, and offers editing, translation, and sharing capabilities.

• HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant
• Comes with support
• Is competitively priced
• Has a 2 week free trial
• Very customizable
• Syncs with EHRs

Soaper

This AI scribe was designed with surgeons and those that work in emergency medicine in mind. It can accurately transcribe notes, including medical jargon, and allows practitioners to either dictate information or use the transcription. Both can easily be synced with the EHR using their integration software.

• At $49.99/month it is cheaper than most AI scribes
• HIPPA compliant
• Does not retain medical data
• Minimizes third party vendors

Cleo

Cleo was built for acute care and those that work in emergency medicine. Its interface is very straightforward and can be easily incorporated into busy shifts. Since it was designed to help physicians in emergency settings, you can utilize its quickstart button that will start recording immediately and fill in the patient information as you proceed through the encounter and register the patient for you.

• HIPAA compliant
• Ambient macro detection for tasks you use most
• Identify risks with the help of AI recommendations
• Multi-patient management that allows you to preload patients and can handle interruptions

Is using an AI scribe for emergency medicine right for your facility?

AI scribes have a lot of benefits for doctors who work in emergency medicine situations. When every moment is important, you want to ensure you’re getting all the necessary information to include in the patient’s note so that the healthcare team can get to work treating them as soon as possible. If you’re looking for an AI scribe that can perform in any type of situation, consider signing up for Playback Health’s ambient medical scribe!