Redefining Routine: A Day in Medicine with AI Scribing

Another day. A glance at my EMR calendar shows 28 patients and 10 tele-consults. On any other day, this would mean a few hours of charting after seeing my last patient, but not today, in fact, nor any day going forward.
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After the last sip of my home-brewed coffee, I got up and went to the exam room to meet my
first patient of the day.
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“Hello Emma, good to see you. I will be using an AI medical scribe that captures our conversation privately and securely and generates accurate and complete notes so I can focus more on you than on my computer screen. Would you like to consent?”
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With a happy nod and a ‘Yes’ from Emma, I clicked the ‘Start Recording’ button on my Empathia app, and our consultation commenced. Strangely, although it’s a process I have done thousands of times in my years of practice, the encounter feels different today. I am looking at my patient as she speaks instead of fixating on my monitor screen. I am listening to my patient, instead of searching for the next checkbox to click on my EMR. And I am practicing medicine again, instead of sharpening my computer skills.
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The consultation lasted 10 minutes. With Emma happily leaving the room after receiving my full attention, I clicked the ‘Stop Recording’ button on the Empathia app. I logged into my Empathia physician portal and found the pre-charting note from Emma’s visit ready for me to review.
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Hmm... two issues – sore throat and ear pain, captured. HPI, in narrative form, is there, better than I would have written it myself. Vitals, test results, my medical reasoning, and last but not least, the treatment plan I recommended. As I reviewed the note, I made a few edits here and there—removing a sentence to make the note more succinct and adding a point that I forgot to mention during the visit. When I was done, I clicked ‘Copy’, and then pasted the note into my patient chart. Oh, I needed to send a referral letter for Emma to see a radiologist: click ‘Generate Referral Letter’, and done. This first visit sets the tone for the rest of the day.
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No after-visit frenetic typing, no dictation, no pajama time. Practicing medicine can be joyful, rewarding, and about patients again.
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When I get together with my weary colleagues, we often lament that we would love to be doctors again, but only if there’s no charting.

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When I wake up in the morning on weekends, I can finally be with my family instead of catching up on dozens of backlogged patient charts.

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AI scribing may not be the panacea for modern-day medicine, but it sure solves a pain point that helps me look forward to seeing my patients again in the morning.

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By Walter Yuan, Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder of Empathia.ai.

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Learn more about Empathia.ai here: https://ca.cherry.health/partnerships/empathia

Check out their site here: https://www.empathia.ai/?utm_source=cherry-health&utm_campaign=empathia-landing-page&utm_medium=partnerships