Main image courtesy of Data Carts.

Clinicians are always looking for new ways to enhance the patient experience and provide the best care possible. One of the groundbreaking methods they are doing this is by employing ambient AI in healthcare. There are a lot of practical uses for including AI intelligence into the day to day operations of healthcare centers, and its interaction with healthcare professionals is designed to be a collaboration that will ultimately benefit the patient and ensure that staff can operate in an efficient manner.

You’ll already find AI technology assisting providers in a variety of areas, whether it’s suggesting diagnosis options to doctors, helping to identify anomalies in diagnostic images, or ensuring that patients are followed up with after appointments. But how does ambient AI help clinicians and what are some of the options you have when it comes to these applications?

This article is going to focus on that and more, including:

• What ambient AI is
• Why it’s making a big difference in healthcare centers
• The best ambient AI scribes available right now

What is ambient AI in healthcare?

Ambient AI is playing a big role in transforming the healthcare industry for the better

Ambient AI technology is designed to work with humans in a collaborative way, and to help make everyday tasks and procedures easier to manage and record. It relies on being conversational and responsive to the needs of the healthcare practice, whether that’s transcribing patient encounters, helping to answer questions, or finding relevant patient information in the EHR. It relies on natural language processing, machine learning, and analytics to continuously learn and adapt to the needs of clinicians. 

This type of technology can easily be scaled up or down to meet the needs of any size healthcare establishment, from large hospital campuses to private practices—and clinicians are really starting to like what they see. According to one University of Chicago study, 90% of providers who used an AI scribe felt that it allowed them to be more present with patients. This is one of the major benefits of using the ambient AI medical scribe, it’s easy to use and it is designed to exist in the background until needed. AI scribes are applications that can be downloaded to any smartphone or tablet, and can be used during patient encounters to transcribe the conversation between doctor and patient. 

Clinicians who use this technology do not have to worry about splitting their attention between the patient and documenting the encounter in their notes. When the clinician can actually look the patients in the eye and hear what they have to say, they’re more present—and patient satisfaction levels increase. In addition to these benefits, having the AI scribe chart the note is a big time saver. The transcription of the encounter is easily put into note form, filling in essential health information and ensuring that the patient’s record is up to date. No longer do providers have to spend time during (or after) the encounter to fill in information and risk missing crucial points and add time at the end of their shift to ensure they’re filled out appropriately.

With AI, notes are created in real time and are always reviewed by the doctor for accuracy before they are included in the EHR. Since the note is done by the time the encounter is over, the patient also has the option of reviewing the information to ensure that everything that was said is included. This ensures that patients have a role in the management of their health, and can correct information or include additional items they feel are important. 

This is what ambient AI is so good at, eliminating paper work and repetitive administrative tasks. It gives healthcare workers the freedom to spend more time on essential tasks that involve the care of patients, and automates workflow tasks like scheduling appointments, ordering tests or prescriptions, and ensuring follow ups are made. 

Why ambient AI is beneficial to healthcare

Healthcare can really benefit from having the assistance of ambient AI technology 

Healthcare centers across the world are interested in adding ambient AI to their daily routine because it can really help healthcare teams reach the quadruple aim—to provide a better clinician and patient experience, with better outcomes, and at a lower cost. These are some of the major benefits of ambient medical AI.

• Better patient care. This is the top goal of healthcare providers of all specialities, ensuring that their patients receive the highest level of care. Ambient AI allows the patient and physician to have a conversation, and ensures that all the required information is transcribed and added to the record in real time. Freeing clinicians from typing notes as the patient speaks ensures that charts reflect the most accurate information, and important details are not left out. 

AI also helps patients get diagnoses sooner and with greater accuracy. It will help clinicians develop a customized patient treatment plan that considers all facets of the patient’s history and health. Real time monitoring of after care and rehab are also ways that patients can be a part of their own recovery and lower their chances of readmission or falling behind on reaching progress goals. 

• Helps clinicians. We all know that providers want to spend more time with patients, but administrative tasks are also an important aspect of all healthcare facilities. Allowing AI to assist by automating tasks along the patient journey ensures that there is less room for human error. AI medical scribes precisely transcribe the encounter and create a note in parallel with the conversation, giving the clinician more time to give their attention to the patient. This helps prevent burnout from the variety of other tasks providers do on a daily basis. 

• Easier workflow. It’s essential for the healthcare center to operate with the least amount of challenges possible, and improving the workflow is another benefit of ambient AI. The entire patient journey from scheduling appointments, getting medication, and providing follow up notices can all be automated, ensuring patients are ushered along the path and aren’t left behind. 

AI also assists with coding and billing for procedures and appointments and does so with more accuracy than humans. This means that insurance companies are more likely to approve claims, ensuring timely payment. 

AI transcribed chart notes are approved by the provider and then made immediately available to all members of the healthcare team.

• Simple to set up and is secure. You don’t want to have an application that requires a lot of training or that doesn’t have an intuitive interface. Ambient AI medical scribes are very easy to download and set up, and they can easily operate from verbal commands. It’s essential to find an ambient AI that is HIPAA compliant so you can rest assured that the personal health data of patients is secured and encrypted.

Ambient AI healthcare technology has a variety of benefits and applications that are helping to improve patient care and allow clinicians to focus on people instead of clerical tasks. You’ll find ambient AI at all phases of healthcare delivery.

In the healthcare center

Like we mentioned before, ambient medical scribes are helping physicians and other healthcare professionals by streamlining administrative tasks so that humans can give greater focus to patient care. There is an all too real problem of clinician burnout affecting providers at all types of healthcare establishments. This can be due to the need to fill out notes while they see patients (or after hours), allowing less time to take a break or to go home at the end of a long shift.

AI can not only take over the task of transcribing the doctor/patient conversation and building a note out of the information, but it can also improve how data is retrieved and accessed in the EHR. Tasks like scheduling appointments or asking for more information can easily be handled by virtual AI assistants, and follow up reminders can seamlessly be implemented to ensure patients are not left behind and are moving along the right patient journey for them. 

At home

Ambient AI can also provide benefits outside of an outpatient facility or office, and is beneficial to those who are at home but may need extra help. This could include monitoring and follow up on daily living activities, and providing information to clinicians about whether or not the patient may need more (or less) assistance. Ensuring that people with specialized health needs and those recovering from procedures are monitored at home is a great way to reduce the chances of hospitalization or other adverse events happening to them, such as a fall. 

Once a patient has been discharged from rehab at a healthcare center, they are likely to still need home rehabilitation to get back to their best level of functionality. Using ambient AI to monitor patients at home is a good way to ensure that patients are doing the necessary rehab, and that they’re meeting the goals that providers have set in place. No clinician wants to see a patient fall behind in their rehab, and using this type of technology is an ideal way to see if additional adjustments to care that would better benefit the patient need to be made.

In the hospital

You’ll also find beneficial uses of ambient AI in hospital settings such as the ICU. Physicians can benefit from AI as it can provide input on patient care plans that are most likely to provide the best chances for recovery. AI can also prevent data fatigue amongst providers by ensuring that the high value information from the patient’s EHR is given to the clinician. This eliminates the need to filter through all sorts of other information in order to find answers or check something in the patient’s record.

You’ll find ambient AI in operating rooms recording information for future training, as well as assisting the surgeon with real time feedback from the patient. It can also monitor the surgical path to ensure it is the one that offers the most optimal results.

What is the best AI medical scribe?

A few top options for ambient AI scribes

If you’re considering adding an ambient scribe to your facility, you’re in luck, because there are lots of options out there. Take some time and do your research, because you want to make sure that the one you choose can meet your healthcare team’s needs.

• Playback Health. This is the ambient AI tool you want if you’re looking for an application that is HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant, automates patient journeys, provides AI generated notes, has EMR integration, and seamless sharing among team members.
• DAX Copilot. You could also try DAX Copilot that automates notes, has custom templates, and easily creates summaries of patient information. 
• Freed AI. Another option is Freed AI that works seamlessly with EHRs, transcribes encounters, and offers self-learning tech.
• And so many more!

How will your practice benefit from ambient AI in healthcare?

If you’re interested in seeing what ambient AI can do for your healthcare facility, why not try out the top AI medical scribe at Playback Health? With this ambient scribe you can streamline your workflow, simplify charting, automate patient journeys, and give precious time back to clinicians. When you’re ready to take your practice to the next level when it comes to patient satisfaction and efficiency, consider bringing ambient AI into your healthcare establishment.