Virtual/AI scribes

[MGG1848]

I was just demoed an AI scribe/dictation system from one of the big companies out there. It records the encounter then spits out an instant formatted note. It also automatically excludes extraneous information using AI.

While I see this is a potential help for our quality of life, I was wondering if anyone has used something similar in practice? Or does anyone use virtual (audio or video) scribing solutions which, to me, may be a better fit in the ED?

Is there any benefit in our new documentation environment? I expect the cost to be significantly less than in person scribing costs.

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[skougess]

Only downsides. It will create more work than it’ll save. 9/10 patients verbal diarrhea every symptom the have ever experienced when telling you about the hangnail they are really there for. I don’t want “chest pain” in a chart for a patient who has an obvious URI.

 

[Groove]

Do we really even need it with current 2023 documentation changes? Most EMRs have a plethora of smart phrases and macro templates that can be dropped into the note with a single click. Now that the HPI/ROS/PE requirements are less stringent, most of the time I'm typing a very concise history, maybe 1 or 2 clicks on ROS, only relevant PE and a bunch of negatives that I drop in or click and then I just type the MDM. I've got several smart phrases that I use liberally in my MDM depending on the case along with smart phrases for the exit care stuff. I've got dragon on top of that. It's completely painless. I haven't used scribes in well over a year now that we started getting billed for their services. I'm also the fastest in our group, so it's def not slowing me down. Probably half our docs or more use scribes regularly. I just can't tolerate the 25K loss in salary each year to justify their services.

That being said, I'm completely not surprised by the AI implementation into scribe services and saw that coming but am surprised it's being rolled out so quickly. I anticipate we'll start having medical AI implementation into our EMRs showing differentials and management prompting, etc.. Skynet is coming.

 

[BoardingDoc]

Do we really even need it with current 2023 documentation changes? Most EMRs have a plethora of smart phrases and macro templates that can be dropped into the note with a single click. Now that the HPI/ROS/PE requirements are less stringent, most of the time I'm typing a very concise history, maybe 1 or 2 clicks on ROS, only relevant PE and a bunch of negatives that I drop in or click and then I just type the MDM. I've got several smart phrases that I use liberally in my MDM depending on the case along with smart phrases for the exit care stuff. I've got dragon on top of that. It's completely painless. I haven't used scribes in well over a year now that we started getting billed for their services. I'm also the fastest in our group, so it's def not slowing me down. Probably half our docs or more use scribes regularly. I just can't tolerate the 25K loss in salary each year to justify their services.

That being said, I'm completely not surprised by the AI implementation into scribe services and saw that coming but am surprised it's being rolled out so quickly. I anticipate we'll start having medical AI implementation into our EMRs showing differentials and management prompting, etc.. Skynet is coming.

Agree that this feels unnecessary. I love the new coding changes. My charts are way more streamlined (I'm also making a bunch more money it would seem). Really don't need anything scribed as the meat of my chart is the MDM and that's what dragon is for.