Oracle this week announced that its new Clinical Digital Assistant – which features generative AI, multimodal voice and other navigation tools – is available to help ambulatory physicians streamline their clinical documentation.

WHY IT MATTERS
Deployed within Oracle Health's electronic health record, the AI tool combines clinical automation conversation-based note generation – and can propose clinical follow right at the point of care, the company says.

Clinical Digital Assistant also helps automate referrals, prescription orders and scheduling of follow-up labs and appointments, according to Oracle Health, boosting workflow efficiencies.

For instance, its voice capabilities allow providers to access information from their patients' medical history by asking – reducing the need to navigate through drop-down menus or scroll through screens of the EHR.

During the patient encounter, meanwhile, the tool captures clinical notes with the provider's preferred templates, saving potential hours of documentation time each day.

Clinical Digital Assistant helps reduce clicks and enables synchronization of new data with the patient's existing EHR without copying and pasting – reducing the manual work that contributes to clinician burnout. Providers maintain oversight of the note, however, able to review, modify and approve via their computer or mobile device.

Oracle Health says clinicians at more than a dozen early adopter sites have on average more than four and a half minutes per patient, and reduced the time needed for charting by 20-40%.

"Since the 1990's, EHRs have turned physicians into keyboard junkies," said James Little, a primary care doctor at Jackson, Wyoming-based St. John's Health. "Our physicians who have been using this technology have been able to document their patient's visit in real-time, allowing them to leave at the end of the day with good, quality notes. Time spent after hours documenting is no longer needed."

"I can simply talk to and focus on my patients, while in the background the system is capturing all the details, notes and next-step actions," added Dr. Ryan McFarland, family medicine practitioner at Wisconsin-based Hudson Physicians. "Not only does this lead to a better experience for me and my patients, but it has significantly diminished the time I take post appointments or after-hours updating notes."

THE LARGER TREND
Clinician burnout is an at an all-time high, and is starting to have real-world ramifications for the provider workforce and even patient safety.

Documentation burdens are severely impacting the care experience for physicians and nurses. Generative AI, voice technologies such as natural language processing and other clinical assistance tools, from Oracle and others, can help streamline repetitive but necessary charting tasks, reducing burnout and even boosting revenue.

As genAI continues to mature and find its way into clinical workflows at providers nationwide, docs and nurses are getting onboard with it. But automation tools need to be properly calibrated, and human oversight is essential.

ON THE RECORD
"Practitioners spend upwards of 20-35% of their time on administrative work – this isn't sustainable and contributes to burnout," said Seema Verma, executive VP and general manager of Oracle Health and Life Sciences. "We need our providers focused on patient needs."

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Mike Miliard is executive editor of Healthcare IT News
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.