Primary care physicians are generally pretty optimistic about AI’s potential to make care delivery more efficient, according to new survey results released by Elation Health.
Elation is a San Francisco-based company that provides an EHR for primary care providers, as well as software for patient engagement, telehealth and revenue cycle management. For its survey, the company collected responses from 156 of its customers, all of whom were primary care clinicians.
“Most of the technology today that primary care providers are saddled with just simply weren’t built for them. Unfortunately, most of these platforms are hostile to clinical workflows and clunky to use,” said Phill Tornroth, Elation’s vice president of engineering and AI innovation lead. “Clinicians spend hours of their time outside of work — ‘pajama time’ as many call it — finishing their notes and coding their visits in accordance with an ever-growing collection of complex rules, all while trying to get through their inbox of incoming reports and lab results.”
As the U.S. healthcare system continues to place a greater emphasis on population health management, the requirements for that kind of administrative work have “grown exponentially” over the past couple decades, he added.
However, primary care is still paid for using mainly fee-for-service models, meaning that resources haven’t scaled up commensurately with costs, Tornroth noted.
“The most important component of providing primary health care hasn’t changed all that much in the past 15 years — the power of primary care lies in the physician-patient relationship. Patients are much more likely to follow medical advice when it’s coming from a doctor who knows them and whom they trust. The key to primary care success is the humanity at the heart of it, something AI can never replace,” he declared.
To him, AI presents a huge opportunity to remove a significant chunk of providers’ administrative burden — all with the ultimate goal of maximizing the time clinicians have to spend with their patients.
Nearly 70% of the survey’s respondents agree that AI will be an important part of making healthcare delivery more effective and efficient in the future. The survey also showed that a majority of primary care clinicians think AI has been the one technology that has made the greatest positive impact on their practices in the last year, reporting that it has decreased their pajama time.
Tornroth highlighted automated dictation and scribing tools as the AI technologies that have been most impactful for primary care providers.
“I’ve talked to several physicians who report AI scribe tools saving them multiple hours per day, while improving the patient’s experience and provider’s ability to focus during the visit,” he declared.
He also noted that AI is most effective when the technology is thoughtfully designed to be integrated into clinicians’ workflows — therefore serving as a helpful assistant to the clinician, not just an extra layer of technology.
Like many others in the healthcare technology space, Tornroth is a firm believer that AI is here to augment clinicians’ work — not replace them.
“Instead of perpetuating a fear that AI is savvy enough to replace experienced physicians whose knowledge and work is needed especially during the industry’s unprecedented shortage, I’m seeing and continue to predict the opposite. AI can strengthen physicians and give them more power when the technology is used effectively,” he said.
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