Nearly 75% of health workers say documentation impedes patient care: survey

Dive Temporary:

Almost three-quarters of healthcare professionals say the time or effort wanted to finish medical documentation hampers affected person care, in response to a survey printed this week by the American Medical Informatics Affiliation.
Documentation duties comply with healthcare staff residence too. Greater than 77% of respondents reported ending work later than desired or working after hours because of extreme documentation.
The survey comes as a lot of expertise corporations are touting generative synthetic intelligence instruments that purpose to chop down the quantity of labor wanted to doc care in medical information.

Dive Perception: 

Documentation burden is a long-term drawback within the healthcare trade. Clinicians say they spend hours on note-taking and different administrative duties in digital well being information — typically after work hours — contributing to burnout and siphoning time away from direct affected person care. 

The newest survey by the AMIA, which surveyed greater than 1,200 healthcare staff throughout the nation, discovered many clinicians nonetheless report spending extreme effort and time recording affected person care.

Clinicians additionally famous EHR usability issues, one other long-reported problem within the sector. Greater than 44% disagreed that it was simple to doc affected person care within the EHR and higher than 66% of respondents mentioned that they had not seen a latest lower within the time or effort wanted to finish documentation duties.

The survey comes because the healthcare sector has proven elevated curiosity in generative AI note-taking merchandise, which expertise corporations say will alleviate documentation burden and burnout.

Corporations like Oracle, Amazon, NextGen Healthcare, Google and Microsoft-owned Nuance Communications have developed instruments that take heed to conversations between clinicians and sufferers and draft medical notes. HCA Healthcare, one of many largest hospital chains within the nation, not too long ago mentioned it might roll out its Augmedix AI scribe to extra emergency departments.

Different healthcare organizations say they’re fascinated by implementing generative AI merchandise quickly. A survey printed late final 12 months by Klas Analysis discovered greater than half of organizations need to put the instruments in place throughout the subsequent 12 months, and a lot of executives with a technique mentioned they’d use it for documentation at their corporations.

However there are nonetheless issues about generative AI merchandise, with leaders citing worries about accuracy and reliability. Different specialists have argued a too-rapid deployment might replicate biases and widen well being inequities.