The Rise of Ambient Computing in Healthcare
Practitioners and clinicians work hard to give their patients the best possible treatments, diagnoses and service, but sometimes certain things can get in the way of this. There’s much more happening behind the scenes - practitioners don’t just spend their time on a patient when they are in a consultation. Their work extends beyond this time frame and their tasks have become far more complex with the addition of EHRs (electronic health records) in healthcare.
EHRs were initially meant to make life easier for clinicians by digitizing an old system that had long-since caused frustration in the medical world, but recent studies have found that EHRs are actually one of the main contributors to clinician burnout. How did something so promising become so counterproductive?
The Pitfalls of EHRs
EHRs can lead to what is known as an increase in cognitive load as clinicians have to multitask and focus on filling in the correct information into the record while the patient explains symptoms. This can lead to errors in diagnosis and decision making, as well as how the patient's information becomes medically coded. These issues have been found to be directly correlated to clinician burnout. A survey in July 2020 found that 74.5% of respondents who reported symptoms of burnout identified EHRs as a contributor.
There is also the issue of redundancy. Not all practitioners know exactly what to put into each EHR, for example, how to word things and how much detail to go into. Errors upon errors can occur, especially if clinicians use templates to copy and paste certain information regarding a patient in their EHRs.
There is a solution for these errors - something that can cut clinician time spent on EHRs virtually in half, thus reducing stress and ultimately burnout, while simultaneously reducing errors and improving treatments.
Ambient Computing - Towards a Brighter Future
The development of ambient computing has very promising outcomes for the medical world, especially in reducing the negative effects of EHRs. Companies such as Nuance, Providence, and Amazon are working on artificial intelligence platforms that use ambient technologies to listen in on clinician - patient conversations. This is the same kind of technology used for products such as Alexa and Google Home. The AI can then record the relevant information for the patient’s EHR, while simultaneously filtering out the common and irrelevant conversation between the clinician and the patient.
With the help of AI like these, clinicians can focus on creating a more natural, conversational environment with patients, while also reducing the strain of having to multitask or work overtime. The risks associated with new practitioners having to learn the technicalities of EHRs and how to correctly and efficiently fill them out can also be significantly reduced. The overall benefit of this up and coming technology is outstanding, causing treatments and the wellbeing of both practitioners and patients to be greatly improved.
SRG is actively working with our customers to apply natural language processing and AI-ML techniques to structure clinical information. We look forward to the evolution facilitated by the more robust information captured by ambient computing to enhance clinical decision support, patient centered care, and care management. The future of healthcare lies within AI, and SRG is prepared to grow alongside these new developments and technologies.
Written by:
Maxine Wesley
