Since the introduction of Electronic Medical Records, the administrative burden on doctors has been constantly increasing. Now more than ever, clinicians are seeking ways to improve efficiency without compromising patient care. AI-powered tools have emerged as a powerful part of the solution to this challenge. This guide will take you through the process of evaluating and implementing an AI medical scribe in your practice.
Understanding AI Medical Scribes
An AI medical scribe is a tool designed to automate the process of writing clinical notes and documents. By leveraging natural language processing and machine learning technologies, an AI powered scribe can:
- Transcribe spoken consults in real-time
- Generate structured clinical notes that integrate with the Electronic Medical Records (EMRs)
- Adapt to individual preferences through custom instructions to the AI model
Why might your practice look at introducing an AI scribe into your tech portfolio?
- Reduce documentation burden
- Improved note quality and consistency
- Better patient doctor interaction
This can have a large impact on:
- Decreasing practitioner burnout
- Increasing patient throughput
- Increasing practitioner job satisfaction
- Decrease employee turnover
- Decreasing medico-legal risk
Most importantly, an AI scribe can greatly enhance practitioners’ job satisfaction. By reducing the time spent on documentation, doctors can focus more on their patients and provide the high-quality care they have dedicated years of training to deliver.
Evaluating AI Medical Scribes
Before evaluating AI medical scribes themselves, it's crucial to evaluate whether your practice is actually ready for an AI medical scribe, because, it does require willingness to change, so here are some things to consider.
Current Workflow
- What is your current workflow when taking notes and writing documents?
- Do you hand-write, type, or dictate?
- How long does it currently take?
- Does it slow you down?
- If you type, how much impact does it have on the interaction with the patient?
Current infrastructure
- Does each room have a microphone?
- Is the microphone good quality? We suggest omni-directional longer distance microphones work best. You can find these for as little as $50 each.
Current attitude
- How do the staff react to the idea of introducing new technology?
- Identify potential champions as these people are often a great way to promote change in a team
Selecting the Right AI Medical Scribe
There are currently over 40 medical scribes available on the market, so choosing the right one can take some research. As artificial intelligence continues to develop, AI scribes do too, so their product features are what sets them apart. Here are a couple of things to consider when choosing an AI scribe:
Privacy & Security
- What data is processed?
- Where is the data processed and stored? Depending on your location, if the scribe is not processing the data exclusively in your region, you might have to explicitly mention this to your patient otherwise you can be personally liable.
- How long is the data stored?
- Is the data used to train the AI model? Some scribes will use your patients information to train the model to make it better, often these products are free and are making money from your data.
Accuracy & Performance
- How well does it transcribe the consultation? Transcription is the part of the product which turns audio into text, it is the starting point to creating a good quality note. Most scribes will show you the transcription, so do a test to see how good the transcription is.
- How fast does it generate the note? You want to make sure the note is generated in less than a minute so you aren't wasting valuable time post consultation.
- How well does it handle your medical terminology? Some scribes will use a generic voice to text transcription model, where as others will use a medical specific voice to text transcription model.
EMR Integration
- Does the scribe integrate with your existing EMR system? A very deeply integrated scribe will create much better quality notes, and also reduce the time it takes to transfer these notes into the patients file.
- If they don’t, the leading AI scribes often integrate with major EMRs, demonstrating that they are a trusted choice for these systems.
Customisation
- Does the scribe allow you to easily customise the note and document output? Make sure you can upload examples for the system to learn how to write like you.
- Can you share these custom templates with your team?
- Can you download templates from the community? Some scribes allow you to browse documents created by other doctors, this is a useful time saver.
Implementing an AI Medical Scribe
A successful implementation generally requires a planned strategy, here are some things to consider:
Timeline
- How long do you think it will take you to have the whole team set up on the new product? Set a realistic goal and allow for training and adjustment periods
Infrastructure
Trial Period
- Does the scribe offer a free trial? Organise your team and try to start them all on the same day or week to maximise the trial.
- Gather feedback from your team throughout the trial and share it with the scribe company to help them support you.
Pricing
- Ask the scribe company to put a custom quote together for you, some scribes offer discounts for teams.
- What is the best billing period? Some clinics prefer monthly payments to reserve cash, whilst others might have grants that need to be used so an annual payment is better and often the company will provide a bigger discount for an annual subscription.
Proving an ROI with an AI Medical Scribe
Measuring success and proving a return on investment is typically quite hard with new pieces of healthcare technology, but it is simple with an AI scribe. Here is how you can do it:
Before Implementation
- Measure how long you are spending on documentation. Are you spending 12 extra minutes per consult on documentation and seeing 20 patients each day for 4 days a week? If so, you’re spending 16 hours per week on documentation.
After Implementation
- After using the scribe for a few weeks or months, re-measure how long you are spending on documentation. Let’s assume you’re now spending 8 minutes per consult on documentation while seeing the same number of patients. You would be saving around 5.3 hours each week.
- If your hourly rate is approximately $200 per hour and you work 46 weeks of the year, this translates to about 248 hours saved a year, or $49,000 per year in additional earnings. This extra time could be used to see more patients and increase your income or spend more valuable time with your family.
Conclusion
Whilst there are many things to consider when implementing an AI medical scribe, the benefits are worth the time it takes to research these scribes. Speak to your colleagues and ask what they use, because often the most trusted brand comes through a recommendation from a friend rather than social media.
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