Hospitals like Sutter Health and groups such as The Permanente Medical Group (TPMG) have started using ambient AI platforms to lessen the work of electronic health record (EHR) documentation. For example, Sutter Health works with the AI company Abridge. This lets doctors record talks with patients after getting permission. The AI then creates detailed medical notes and simpler summaries for patients. More than 2,000 doctors at Sutter Health use this system. They say it helps their workflow and improves how they talk with patients. Doctors always check the AI-generated notes to make sure they are correct. This step keeps the quality of care high.
TPMG’s AI scribes saved doctors about 15,791 hours of documentation time in one year during over 2.5 million patient visits. Doctors say they talk more with patients and spend less time typing. Nearly half of the patients noticed that their doctors used computers less and listened to them more. These changes are most seen in areas where there is a lot of paperwork, like mental health, primary care, and emergency rooms.
Since AI has worked well for making notes, using it for other tasks like order entry and billing could be the next step. Hospitals in the US have problems with order entry, coding, and billing mistakes. These tasks are often slow and need to be done carefully to avoid errors and delays.
Using ambient AI for order entry means that doctors’ spoken orders can be turned into written orders right away by the AI. This could cut delays and mistakes. AI could also help billing by linking clinical notes directly to billing codes. This would lower the amount of admin work and speed up claim processing. It would help hospitals follow billing rules and hand fewer rejected claims, saving money.
Orders and billing codes made by AI have to be checked by doctors or billing experts. Errors may cause safety problems or billing fraud. Human review is important. Automated order entry is more than just transcription; it needs clinical decisions to be carefully checked so harmful mistakes don’t happen.
Since ambient AI records talks between patients and doctors, privacy must be strongly protected. Hospitals need strict rules for patient consent and data security. Using AI for billing means money information must also be safely handled and follow HIPAA laws.
AI must work well with many different EHR and billing systems hospitals already use. Technical problems can come up if AI data does not fit well with current workflows. This could cause mistakes or repeated data.
Hospitals should think about how staff jobs might change when AI takes over admin tasks. AI should help staff by reducing burnout and letting them work on more personal and complex care duties, not cut jobs.
AI can be unfair if it learns from data that does not represent all groups of people. Hospitals should choose AI vendors who are open about where their data and programming come from. This can help reduce unequal care, especially for patients who already get less care.
Workflow automation uses technology to make tasks like scheduling, note-taking, order processing, and billing faster and less error-prone. Ambient AI helps by listening and working in real time during patient visits.
For example, TPMG shows that AI scribes save a lot of time on documentation. This lets doctors spend more time with patients. Spending more time with patients helps doctors feel better about their work and lowers burnout. Burnout is a big problem in US healthcare and linked to worse care and doctors quitting.
Using ambient AI for order entry and billing could help more:
Hospitals like Sutter Health and TPMG give lessons for others thinking about AI expansions:
Dr. Kristine Lee of TPMG says AI can help doctors feel better at work while giving good care. Dr. Vincent Liu says ambient AI helps doctors keep eye contact with patients, which patients appreciate. These views show AI is not just for speeding up work but also for helping the human side of healthcare.
For hospital leaders and IT managers in the US who plan to use or expand ambient AI, it is important to balance faster work with ethical duties. Automating order entry and billing can lower admin work, speed up money processes, and help follow rules. But people must still check work to keep patients safe and data correct.
Choosing strong AI systems that work with current health IT, training staff well, and being clear with patients and regulators will help make AI work well. Expanding ambient AI beyond note-taking gives a way for hospitals to modernize operations and improve care in the US healthcare system.
Traditional patient summaries rely heavily on clinician recall and typing speed, often leading to incomplete or less detailed documentation. AI aims to alleviate this by capturing detailed information from patient-clinician interactions automatically, reducing cognitive burden and improving accuracy.
Sutter Health uses ambient AI from Abridge to record patient-clinician conversations with consent. After the visit, the AI generates a comprehensive clinical note for medical records and a separate patient-friendly summary, improving documentation quality while freeing clinicians from manual note-taking.
These summaries are written in accessible language without heavy medical jargon, empowering patients to understand their care, recall details, and actively participate in decision-making, thus enhancing patient engagement and satisfaction.
Yes, clinicians review both the detailed clinical notes and the patient-friendly summaries before approving them to ensure accuracy and reliability, maintaining clinical oversight of all documentation.
Patients have expressed appreciation for the high level of detail and accuracy, feeling that the summaries reflect that their concerns were truly heard and documented, which improves their sense of being listened to and understood.
Ambient AI reduces the need for clinicians to type notes during consultations, allowing them to focus fully on the patient, thereby decreasing cognitive and clerical burdens and improving job satisfaction.
Challenges include training clinicians, testing workflows across specialties, and ensuring adoption without disruption. Sutter Health addressed this through phased pilot programs and iterative improvements before scaling to thousands of users.
AI facilitates transparency by automatically producing and sharing detailed, understandable visit summaries with patients, fulfilling regulatory requirements and strengthening patients’ roles as active members of their care teams.
Sutter Health plans to extend ambient AI use beyond ambulatory care to inpatient and emergency departments, while exploring additional AI functionalities such as order entry, billing, and coding automation.
A ‘pull’ approach means clinicians actively want and adopt the technology because it eases their workload, unlike a ‘push’ where technology is imposed and may be resisted. This encourages smoother integration and better acceptance of AI tools.
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