EClinicalWorks, a cloud-based vendor of electronic health record and practice management systems for small clinics, hospitals and large health systems, will have a large presence at the HIMSS24 Global Conference & Exhibition.

Healthcare IT News sat down with Sameer Bhat, vice president of sales and cofounder of eClinicalWorks, to learn all about the algorithmic workflow process innovations the Massachusetts-based EHR vendor will bring to HIMSS24 attendees and to get his take on how AI integrations can increase patient satisfaction and reduce burnout.

Q. How has AI in healthcare evolved in the last year since the previous HIMSS global conference, and what are key trends for electronic health records and clinical documentation going into this year’s conference?

A. Over the past year, AI has moved beyond simple use cases like generative AI-enabled chatbots to more complex and specialized applications like ambient listening for clinical documentation. 

The main driver behind this rapid adoption of innovation is to reduce physician burnout and increase efficiency. The introduction of AI capabilities and enhancements has the potential to improve practice efficiency by 20%, which in turn allows providers to put that valuable time and energy back into patient interactions.

Stemming from this need, key AI trends at HIMSS this year will focus on producing clinical documentation via ambient listening technology, applications that collect and summarize the large amounts of data that exist for each patient, categorizing and managing images and faxes, making it easier to succeed in value-based care and automating complex processes through robotic process automation.

Whether it’s automated record retrieval and organization for easy review before a patient appointment, AI solutions to match incoming faxes to patients or technology that captures and autonomously transcribes patient encounters, AI in healthcare is redirecting providers’ time to what matters most – patient care. When that is achieved, practices will not only operate more efficiently and effectively, but the result is a better healthcare experience for providers, staff and patients alike.

Q. Before HIMSS23, you discussed how making healthcare more streamlined, secure and automated is ultimately better for patients. Can you provide some examples of how this is happening?

A. EClinicalWorks V12 is the first AI-powered EHR, and we’ve rapidly integrated AI across all our offerings over the past year to streamline and automate healthcare workflows for a better provider and patient experience. 

The common threads behind all our latest AI integrations is to reduce provider burnout as well as increase patient satisfaction.

That’s why we’ve integrated with Sunoh.ai, an EHR-agnostic, AI-powered ambient listening technology that seamlessly transcribes the natural conversations between providers and patients for clinical documentation. But more than just transcribing the conversation, the Sunoh.ai medical AI scribe understands the information and presents a smart, tailored visit summary that is automatically categorized for easy integration with the patient progress note. 

It has the potential to save providers roughly one hour on clinical documentation a day.

Sunoh.ai can prefill and queue orders to capture medications, labs, imaging and referrals efficiently. With it, providers can look their patients in the eye and have a human-to-human conversation. This assures patients that their provider isn’t distracted by intricate documentation but instead, focused on their care. This technology is now available to our customers on any device, anywhere, at any time, with the support of web, mobile and tablet offerings.

We also deployed an AI assistant that can translate medical documentation into a patient’s native language. This helps practices serving diverse populations ensure every patient leaves with a full understanding of their care and next steps. 

For example, Moreno Valley Physicians Associates, a family medicine practice in Moreno Valley, California, was able to help a patient receive all her care in the U.S. rather than going back to Tijuana, Mexico, to have a provider there explain her care and medical documentation in Spanish. The first time she was handed her visit summary in Spanish, she broke down in tears because she didn’t have to travel back to Mexico for healthcare anymore.

With our AI assistant for PRISMA, providers can easily access highlights of a patient’s entire medical record within the eClinicalWorks EHR. Providers can now access the most critical information they need for an upcoming appointment, aiding patient care. It also summarizes gaps in care and coding, which helps capture vital information to succeed in value-based care. Blue Bonnet Family Medicine Health and Wellness Clinic, an Ennis, Texas-based family medicine clinic, was able to see 10% more patients daily thanks to the time saved with the AI assistant for PRISMA.

Together, these AI integrations work behind the scenes to streamline the provider workflow, which improves patient satisfaction. With the help of AI, patients can go into an appointment confident their provider has their most up-to-date medical information, is giving them their full attention, and will equip them with the information they need after an appointment for continued care.

Q. The Physicians Foundation says that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ social determinants of health screening mandate for hospitals aligns with the foundation’s own SDOH recommendations. What challenges do outpatient practices encounter assessing SDOH and using the data, and what is needed to solve these challenges so SDOH data flows to and from routine and follow-up healthcare?

A. Screening is an important part of the data collection process for SDOH but can take extra time if providers and staff must enter separate information and fields into the EHR. We offer a screening tool called PRAPARE, which works with existing EHR fields and protocols to create structured data that can be aggregated across organizations. This helps providers capture data at the point of care and meet workflow and reporting requirements for SDOH. 

We also offer HL7 FHIR-based integrations with networks such as Unite Us and FindHelp, which allow providers to send and track community referrals and access resources like social services directories, care coordination platforms, and community and patient engagement resources. For example, if a provider identifies a patient in need of housing, this system offers referrals to affordable housing organizations.

Our SDOH Report Packages help aggregate data and easily analyze the socioeconomic characteristics of a patient population. With this data and additional offerings like our Disease Explorer tool, providers can identify gaps in care, prioritize referrals and interventions for high-risk patients, and report to state and federal agencies and organizations. Together, these solutions help providers and health centers better understand their patient population, meet regulatory requirements and provide the quality, holistic care every patient deserves. 

Q. Can you offer our readers a sneak peek at eClinicalWorks’ HIMSS24 booth? What new solutions will you be showcasing?

A. Everything comes back to the trend of using AI to streamline processes to reduce physician burnout and improve patient satisfaction. We’ll highlight our AI-powered no-show prediction model, which helps providers across the country increase their show rate and minimize missed appointments. For example, Centerpoint Health, a leading federally qualified health center, achieved 90% accuracy in identifying and reducing missed appointments, and the FQHC Urban Health Plan saw a 154% increase in completed visits for patients identified with a high no-show probability using the no-show prediction model. This solution also has the potential to help practices increase access to care for their community and increase revenue.

We will also showcase our Image AI solution, which automatically reviews incoming faxes from hospitals or other providers to identify the type of document and match it to the correct patient record. This helps providers and staff file documents in the appropriate places in patient records, saving valuable time on administrative work. Additionally, we’ve integrated RPA to create automated "playlists" for quick, multiscreen navigation within the EHR. So instead of clicking through several pages to review metrics such as patients needing a follow-up appointment, providers can use a "playlist" preset to handle the repeatable task with one click. 

This is just the start of our AI showcase. We’ve integrated AI across 30 different areas of our EHR and applications because we see AI as an essential component for the future of healthcare. 

From the AI assistant for PRISMA and document translation to Image AI, Sunoh.ai medical AI scribe, RPA and more, these solutions are essential to helping providers succeed in value-based care and an improved patient experience. Practices that implement AI across all their workflows will benefit from less physician burnout, better administrative efficiency and higher patient satisfaction – which results in better patient outcomes. 

eClinicalWorks will be in booth 4861 and Sunoh.ai at booth 1181 at the HIMSS24 Global Conference & Exhibition.

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.