This article is sponsored by Microsoft.
Over the past few months, we’ve asked hundreds of physicians about their feelings toward and experiences with health care AI.
We’ve found much optimism around AI adoption, with physicians anticipating improvements in everything from patient care to workflow efficiency. When we asked physicians how they saw AI impacting health care, the vast majority said only positive things (Sermo RealTime Insights, 300 physician survey responses).
However, some of the physicians we spoke with told us their own professional goals felt far removed from those of their organizations. If these physicians are to gain buy-in from decision-makers for the AI tools they believe will help their patients and transform their workflows, they’ll need to include their leadership’s objectives in their proposals.
Why some physicians feel out of step
Microsoft and Sermo conducted two surveys three months apart. Each survey targeted a range of specialties and was completed by hundreds of physicians based throughout the U.S.
Almost half of the physicians who participated in our second survey hold a position of leadership within their organization, and yet, 29 percent said the goals of their organization’s decision-makers don’t align with their own.
These physicians overwhelmingly made the same point:
- “They care about the bottom line.”
- “Patient care isn’t their top priority.”
- “Their goals are to reduce costs—my goals are to care for patients.”
It’s easy to understand how physicians and business decision-makers can have very different sets of priorities—and how this lack of alignment can feel like an insurmountable barrier to a physician advocating for fresh investment to improve patient care.
However, the priority differences aren’t always difficult to move beyond, especially when it comes to health care AI.
The potential to meet multiple needs, at once
In many of its health care applications, AI is that rare thing: a technology that helps to address what physicians care about, like improving patient care and achieving a healthy and sustainable work/life balance, and what business decision-makers care about, such as patient throughput and reimbursement, and ultimately, their organization’s bottom line.
One of the most popular use cases, using AI to create better clinical documentation faster and streamline workflows beyond just clinical documentation, is a prime example of how AI meets the priority needs of all.
A case-in-point: AI-assisted clinical documentation
Most physicians we asked about clinical documentation told us they still manually typed up their own notes. According to the Sermo survey, almost a third (32 percent) spend over three hours documenting care every clinic day, and 60 percent devote at least 60 minutes to the task outside of working hours.
This documentation workload is a mental and physical burden, capable of diminishing a physician’s energy levels and their ability to deliver the best possible care. It also reduces the time physicians can devote to the more rewarding parts of the job, like face-to-face interactions with their patients.
Today, this is a burden AI is helping to shoulder.
Using AI to address physicians’ priorities
An AI-powered clinical documentation copilot can capture conversations with patients and their families at the point of care and summarize them for the physician to review after the encounter. It can identify potential opportunities to add more detail and then automate the next steps—generating a referral letter or an after-visit summary that helps patients understand and adhere to their care plan.
All this reduces the amount of time physicians need to spend on documentation and administrative tasks while freeing physicians to focus on the patient in front of them rather than on a screen.
The impact can be huge. In a recent Microsoft survey of 879 clinicians across 340 health care organizations using DAX Copilot involving 340 health care organizations, clinicians using a clinical documentation copilot saved an average of five minutes per encounter. 70 percent found it improved their work/life balance and reduced their feelings of burnout and fatigue, and 77 percent reported it improved documentation quality.
Using AI to address business needs
These outcomes are great news for physicians and patients as well as business leaders at health care organizations currently keeping a close eye on finances.
When physicians save this much time on every encounter, organizations can increase patient throughput while still alleviating the pressure on physicians themselves. Similarly, even as higher quality documentation enables better patient care, it supports more accurate reimbursement.
In a study conducted by the University of Michigan Health-West, AI-supported physicians experienced less burnout, but also saw 12 additional patients per month and increased their wRVUs. The revenue this generated not only covered the cost of the solution but generated an extra 80 percent ROI.
Where physicians see AI’s potential to improve the care they deliver but face opposition from leaders focused on business outcomes, these are the key points they need to include in their proposals.
Saving time translates into many benefits.
We asked physicians who were already using some form of health care AI what they believed to be its main benefit. They said the same thing over and over again: It saves them time.
In health care, time is an incredibly precious resource. When there’s more of it, throughput can be increased, enabling patients to access the care they need faster. Physicians can better focus on patients AND get time back in their day to spend on other tasks or time outside of work. This results in happier clinicians and patients, which can translate into decreased clinician churn and patient leakage and additional revenue from increased throughput and incremental services – all of which improve health care organizations’ financial outcomes.
Time is one of the gifts that AI can give most readily by assisting with, automating, and accelerating everyday tasks. If physicians can show their organizations how saving time supports everyone’s objectives, everyone stands to benefit.
Meet DAX Copilot
Thousands of clinicians use DAX Copilot to automatically document patient encounters and streamline workflows. Discover more about this award-winning clinical documentation and workflow solution.
DAX Copilot by Microsoft is your AI assistant for automated clinical documentation and workflows. DAX Copilot allows physicians to do more with less and turn their words into a powerful productivity tool. DAX Copilot automates clinical documentation—making it available in the EHR within minutes—and clinical workflows, including referral letters, after-visit summaries, style and formatting customizations, and more.
70 percent of physicians who use DAX Copilot say it improves their work-life balance while reducing feelings of burnout and fatigue. Patients love it too! 93 percent of patients say their physician is more personable and conversational, and 75 percent of physicians say it improves patient experiences.
Discover AI-powered solutions for clinical documentation and workflows. Click here to see a 12-minute DAX Copilot demo.
