Primary care is the first step in healthcare. It provides continuous care to patients. Yet, about 100 million Americans do not have access to a primary care provider. This causes problems like delays in care, more visits to emergency rooms, and poor management of chronic diseases.
The need for primary care is much higher than the number of available providers. Studies show there is a shortage equal to two billion hours of primary care time every year. This gap will likely stay because there are not enough workers and more patients need care. The population is aging, and chronic illnesses are increasing.
Practice leaders and IT managers know that adding more providers alone will not solve the problem. They need better ways to use the resources they have. Technology that helps doctors and care teams may be the answer.
AI has grown beyond simple data analysis. Now, it can work directly in healthcare settings. One example is Lumeris’ AI called Tom™, a system that works with primary care teams.
Tom works all day and night within clinical processes. It performs “next-best actions” like scheduling screenings, tracking medication, following up after hospital visits, and teaching patients. It does this on its own without human help. Unlike older health tools that give alerts, Tom takes action in real time. This saves doctors a lot of time.
Tom uses data about social factors, medical guidelines, and personal health to make care decisions. It helps keep patients involved and reduces the load on doctors. This allows care teams to help more people.
Mike Long, CEO of Lumeris, says Tom helps with the “2-billion-hour primary care shortage” by doing routine work automatically. John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins states that Tom could give 100 million more Americans better primary care. It may also lower costs by more than half.
Lumeris reports that their Medicare Advantage plan, Essence Healthcare, earns high ratings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, scoring between 4.5 and 5 stars. This shows AI systems like Tom can improve care quality and efficiency.
For practice leaders, using AI like Tom means schedules run smoother, fewer screenings are missed, and patient care is better coordinated. IT teams keep these AI tools working well inside Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and clinical routines, making sure data is safe.
Health informatics means using systems to handle medical and administrative data in primary care. It gathers, stores, and shares health information quickly and accurately. This helps doctors, nurses, administrators, insurance payers, and patients.
In primary care, informatics makes it easy to share medical data, cut down repeated paperwork, and support decisions based on data. Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) use patient information and medical guidelines to help doctors with diagnoses and treatment plans.
Experts like Mohd Javaid, Abid Haleem, and Ravi Pratap Singh show that combining nursing, data, and analytics improves healthcare management and patient results. Having fast access to updated records and decision tools helps doctors decide better and faster.
For administrators, health informatics means better use of staff time and resources. Care teams get alerts about patients at risk, helping prevent problems. It also helps track quality performance.
These systems support teamwork between specialists and primary care providers. This is important for managing long-term illnesses.
Wearable devices are becoming common in healthcare. These devices collect data like heart rate, steps taken, sleep, and sometimes oxygen or sugar levels. This helps doctors watch a patient’s health more closely.
When wearable data is linked with AI and health systems, doctors get alerts about a patient’s condition outside the clinic. Changes in vital signs or activity can lead to earlier treatment before serious problems develop.
Companies like ŌURA make wearable sensors and health data tools. They work with AI systems like Tom to give a full picture of patient health. This information fits well into primary care routines.
IT managers in clinics handle the challenge of adding wearable data to EHRs safely. Data must be secure and follow standards. Staff also need training to use wearable insights to help patients better.
AI workflow automation helps clinics manage growing tasks. It uses AI to do repetitive work, reduce mistakes, save time, and make sure no steps are skipped when caring for patients.
Tom is a good example of AI automation. It can schedule screenings, follow-ups, track medication, and educate patients without adding work for doctors. It fits smoothly with existing systems and lowers the need for manual work.
Automation reduces missed appointments by sending reminders. It finds care gaps like overdue vaccines and alerts teams for lab test follow-ups. This runs quietly in the background and improves care quality and patient happiness.
AI also handles patient messages. It answers simple questions and sends tough ones to doctors. This helps keep doctors’ schedules clear and reduces stress.
IT and practice leaders work with vendors to customize AI tools. They make sure the AI fits the clinic’s workflow and follows rules like HIPAA. Training and system compatibility are key for success.
Building and using AI, wearable tech, and decision support in healthcare requires teamwork. Healthcare groups, tech companies, and universities must work together.
Lumeris works with groups like BJC Health System’s Health AI Center, MIT’s AI Lab, Oliver Wyman, ŌURA, and Wolters Kluwer. They combine skills in medicine, AI, operations, wearable tech, and clinical content to build tools like Tom.
These partnerships make sure AI tools give useful results, fit real workflows, and follow medical rules. Teams learn and test AI tools together, helping to spread these tools in many primary care clinics across the US.
For healthcare leaders and IT teams, knowing about these partnerships helps trust the support and regular updates that come with AI solutions.
Medical practice leaders play a big role in choosing, setting up, and managing these technologies. Knowing the good and the limits of AI and informatics and thinking about workflow are important for success.
The future of primary care in the United States will be changed by AI automation, wearable devices, and decision support systems. These tools offer ways to fix ongoing shortages, improve coordination of care, lower costs, and make practices run better.
Using these technologies takes more than buying tools. Clinics must change how they work, train their staff, and work with tech vendors and researchers. When done carefully, these approaches can help medical leaders and IT teams improve primary care for better patient results and smoother practice operations.
Tom is an AI-powered Primary Care as a Service™ solution developed by Lumeris to support overburdened physicians and expand primary care access by integrating into clinical workflows and executing autonomous patient management actions.
Tom tackles primary care provider shortages, administrative burdens, limited patient access, and the growing mismatch between demand and supply by expanding care capacity and proactively managing patient care tasks.
Unlike traditional systems that only provide information, Tom autonomously acts on data in real-time, scheduling appointments, monitoring medication, conducting outreach, and personalizing care within shared care plans.
Tom autonomously schedules screenings and appointments, manages care coordination, monitors ongoing patient needs, and escalates complex cases, effectively optimizing provider schedules and reducing administrative workload.
Tom incorporates social determinants of health data alongside clinical guidelines to personalize patient interventions, improving engagement and outcomes while addressing non-clinical factors impacting health.
Tom aims to bridge the 2-billion-hour annual shortage in primary care by expanding provider capacity and enabling access for an estimated 100 million Americans without primary care providers.
Collaborators include BJC Health System’s Center for Health AI, Endeavor Health, MIT Computer Science and AI Lab, Oliver Wyman, ŌURA, and Wolters Kluwer, bringing expertise in AI, healthcare delivery, decision support, and wearable tech.
Lumeris reports improved quality metrics, better patient experiences, enhanced physician satisfaction, and high CMS star ratings (4.5 to 5.0) across multiple Medicare populations using Tom.
By increasing primary care capacity, reducing administrative burdens, and enabling proactive patient management, Tom lowers care costs by over 50% through improved efficiency and prevention.
Being embedded allows Tom to operate 24/7 alongside care teams, providing real-time insights and taking immediate, appropriate actions without disrupting provider workflows, thus enhancing schedule management and care delivery.
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