Survey from eClinicalWorks Finds That AI Can Be an Antidote to Physician Burnout
Healthcare professionals identify how AI-powered solutions help streamline their workflows
WESTBOROUGH, Mass. — July 30, 2024 — eClinicalWorks®, the largest ambulatory cloud EHR, announced the results of a recent survey on the perceptions of how AI helps the healthcare industry. eClinicalWorks surveyed healthcare professionals to gather feedback on how AI-powered solutions help combat key challenges, including physician burnout, managing patient data, and clinical documentation. The full survey report is available here.
“Healthcare professionals face many challenges daily that hinder their ability to provide the best possible care to their patients while mitigating burnout. Specifically, 41% of the respondents noted spending over four hours daily on administrative tasks, including documentation,” said Girish Navani, chief executive officer and cofounder of eClinicalWorks. “We conducted this survey in hopes of shedding light on these issues and gathering feedback on how our providers foresee AI solutions helping them surpass these challenges and improve patient outcomes. It is evident from this survey that healthcare professionals agree – innovative technology and AI solutions have the power to transform healthcare delivery.”
“While AI presents a great opportunity, human intervention is crucial in its use,” said Lalith Samaraweera, director of clinical informatics and business intelligence at Guidewell DCMG. “AI is a complement to your workforce and a helpful asset. It is important to learn where AI can be implemented. Give it a try – the cost of implementation is marginal, especially given the immense benefits.”
Key findings of the survey:
Digitizing health records has increased the documentation burden on physicians in the last 20 years, intensifying physician burnout. However, our survey found that 65% of providers believe AI can best support them with clinical documentation. When asked how much time respondents believe that AI medical scribes can help save, 51% answered that AI medical scribes can save two hours or more on clinical documentation time per provider per day. With this significant time savings, providers can spend more time with patients and free up staff to focus on other important tasks.
Additionally, 68% of respondents find that the volume or the need for analysis is the greatest challenge in managing their fax inbox. Today’s complex healthcare relies heavily on documents, including faxes, that may contain extensive patient histories and clinical information that must be sorted and analyzed.
We found that 85% of providers find it extremely important for practices to gather records from other organizations and health systems, while around 15% noted it’s important. Access to records from other healthcare providers and sources – interoperability – is essential for having a complete record of each patient at the point of care.
Around 64% of respondents experience more than 10 no-show appointments each week. Only around 4% of respondents noted they experience less than two no-shows per week. For all practices, increasing schedule utilization can help improve patient outcomes and practice revenue.
Given these survey results, the conclusion is clear: Investment in AI-powered technology helps streamline clinical documentation, improve office workflows, and reduce no-shows. By doing so, providers are better equipped to expand operations and provide exceptional patient care. The eClinicalWorks AI-powered EHR offers cutting-edge solutions, including integrations with AI-powered medical scribe, Sunoh.ai, and the healow AI-powered no-show prediction model that helps meet the needs of every specialty and practice.
Methodology
eClinicalWorks conducted the online survey during two 2024 company-hosted summits. Over 120 healthcare professionals responded. The survey captures data on key challenges healthcare professionals face and the AI-powered solutions that can alleviate these obstacles.
About eClinicalWorks
eClinicalWorks® was founded in 1999 to help digitize paper charts for ambulatory practices. Today, eClinicalWorks leads the nation in innovation with cloud-based solutions for Electronic Health Records and Practice Management. In addition, we help ambulatory practices, specialists, health centers, urgent care facilities, and hospital systems manage their revenue cycle, patient relationships, and Population Health initiatives. More than 180,000 providers and nearly 1 million medical professionals rely upon the power and scalability of the eCW Cloud for flexible clinical documentation, better front-office workflows, and more efficient billing driven by Robotic Process Automation. We combine innovation, leading-edge technology, and a commitment to patient safety to enable practices to grow and thrive amid the challenges of 21st-century healthcare. For more information, visit www.eclinicalworks.com, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, or call (866) 888-6929.
