Putting “pajama time” to rest with artificial intelligence

You’ve just finished another nonstop day at the clinic, seeing as many patients as you could squeeze into your schedule. After your evening commute, you finally step inside your home and it’s time to unwind, right? Wrong. Time to complete the charting you couldn’t get to during the day—or risk falling even further behind.

This phenomenon of “pajama time” may sound innocuous, but it’s a real challenge. While we can’t add more hours in the day, we can give providers tools to make the most of them with the power of artificial intelligence (AI).

Stretching the healthcare workforce

Documentation time can vary widely between providers based on the clinical setting, specialty, health IT system used and other factors. However, it’s clear that it’s a systemic strain. One study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that for every eight hours scheduled for patient care, ambulatory physicians spend nearly six hours working in the electronic health record (EHR). Other research suggests that primary care physicians spend 6.2 minutes of pajama time per patient visit.

It’s no wonder, then, that burnout levels today remain higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, nearly two-thirds of physicians say they would hypothetically take a pay cut in exchange for more family and personal time.

Listening to providers’ needs

Ambient listening has emerged as a low-risk, high-potential AI use case that can disrupt the documentation status quo. That’s why Altera Digital Health is bringing these capabilities to healthcare organizations of all sizes with our core EHR solutions: Sunrise™, Paragon® Denali and TouchWorks® EHR.

During patient encounters, ambient listening AI captures the natural conversation between providers and patients from the background. As a result, the provider can fully engage without technological distractions, and the patient can feel truly seen and heard.

The documentation relief comes after the encounter is complete—almost immediately. AI can create a progress note, pulling in details from the patient–provider discussion, that is fully structured. Instead of starting from scratch, the provider can quickly review the note and edit it as needed—preserving their clinical autonomy without sacrificing patient safety or data integrity.

Supporting clinical decision-makers

Ambient listening is just one of many AI applications that can both save time and facilitate truly patient-centric care by enabling providers. While more data is flowing due to interoperability improvements, it is often disorganized, forcing providers to spend precious time searching for pertinent details. Some physicians spend as much as 33% of their time in the EHR on chart review.

With intelligent chart summarization, AI can pull together clinically relevant information and deliver a clear picture of the patient. What once took several minutes can be done in a matter of seconds while giving providers greater confidence as they step into the exam room.

At the end of the clinical encounter, AI can also generate personalized education materials based on the patient’s condition, leaving more room for the provider to clarify the care plan and address patient concerns.

Virtual medical assistants (VMAs) integrated with the EHR can further streamline these tasks and other administrative work. With a VMA, a provider could prompt the system to present previous lab results or queue up prescription orders before, during or after the patient visit.

Restoring joy in medicine

Each individual AI use case may save just a few minutes; repeated many times over the course of a shift, they can make a real dent in pajama time.

Ultimately, it’s not just about time or efficiency gains. AI enables providers to place focus back on the reasons they entered the medical profession in the first place: solving complex problems and caring for people.

Learn how Altera Digital Health is leveraging AI to enable greater provider satisfaction—during and after hours—here.

The post Putting “pajama time” to rest with artificial intelligence appeared first on Becker’s Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis.