What if your doctor had the sum total of medical knowledge at their fingertips? What if your nurse could focus more on you, thanks to an extra set of (robotic) hands?
We are in an age of medicine like no other, with next-generation ‘smart’ technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) offering tremendous promise for improvements in access, efficiency and personalized patient care. Endeavor Health is at the leading edge of this shift, using these technologies to support clinical decision-making, operational efficiencies, predictive analytics and more.
“There’s an imperative now to incorporate these tools that we believe will make truly life-changing impacts on our patients and our team members,” said Nadim Ilbawi, MD, System Medical Director of Innovation and Care Model Redesign. He’s working to identify opportunities to incorporate these technologies into how Endeavor Health delivers care.
For example, AI lets physicians access a broad base of knowledge and analyze patient data and medical images to make better diagnoses and treatment recommendations. It can also remove some of the administrative burden of medicine that can keep them from spending more time with you, the patient.
According to Dr. Ilbawi, Endeavor Health is constantly exploring and adopting tools, with several pilots launched to date and more on the way. The potential for AI in healthcare is practically limitless.
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Endeavor Health physicians now have a super-powered AI assistant. With patient permission, a new ‘smart’ ambient documentation program records conversation during a patient exam and quickly generates notes, significantly reducing the time many physicians spend taking notes and creating after visit summaries.
After asking patients if it’s OK to use during the visit, the physician opens an app on their phone and begins a secure recording. When the visit is over the recording is stopped and notes are generated for review within 30 to 60 seconds. The recording is held in a secure cloud and is deleted after a short period of time and physicians review the notes to ensure accuracy.
“Physicians don’t have to type things in during the appointment or worry about missing something,” said Dr. Ilbawi. “They can focus completely on their patient.”
Robot assistants
Nurses are on the frontline of hospital care, with ever-increasing demands on their time. Now, they’re getting an extra set of hands and more hours in a day thanks to a new high-tech assistant. Moxi the robot provides valuable help to nurses, running errands that once took nurses and nurse assistants valuable time and steps.
Moxi makes her own way to the pharmacy and can unlock doors with her code by waving her hand. The pharmacist checks her instructions on the screen on her chest and scans open a secure compartment to deposit the medicine. Moxi does not interact with patients, but frees up time for nurses to focus on what they do best — taking care of you.
“Nurses can concentrate on being at the bedside with patients, providing the best care possible, which is the primary reason why most of them became nurses in the first place,” said Elmer Dulce, Nursing Director for Cardiac Telemetry Units.
Spotting potential dangers
Heralded as a game changer, an AI powered tool that uses natural language processing piloted at some Endeavor Health emergency departments is helping flag patients who may be struggling and in need of a social work consultation.
The platform runs clinical notes through its AI queries to identify patients at high-risk of social determinants of health challenges, like poverty or dangerous home environments.
For example, notes from prior emergency department encounters identified one woman as a likely victim of physical abuse. The social worker had an understanding of what she had been through without a lengthy chart review and was able to use a trauma-informed approach to quickly intervene and offer help.
“It’s very clear that this has made a significant impact and we have been able to provide crucial support to at-risk patients through this innovation,” said Nirav Shah, MD, Associate Chief Medical Informatics Officer of AI and Innovation at Endeavor Health.
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