January 20, 2025 | Travis Bias, DO, MPH, FAAFP and David Bowers, MBA
With ViVE and HIMSS coming up, we’re excited to share how we’re working to solve some of the biggest challenges in healthcare. Read on for a sneak peek of what we’re working on that we’ll showcase at these events.opens in a new tab
When I (Travis) first saw generative artificial intelligence (AI) create a solid draft note within seconds of recording my natural conversation with a patient, I was blown away. As a family physician, the early days of my career were riddled with stressors, many times born from the draining demand to document – in discrete fields, with narrative, by creating orders – complex and sensitive discussions with patients. Now, instead of clicking away on the keyboard while I sincerely – but with inevitable distraction – nod along to a patient’s story, the magic of generative AI captures the key clinical pieces needed to satisfy a variety of ends, from billing to quality measurement. And that’s without me touching the keyboard.
Fifteen years of experience has taught us a variety of factors that will impact clinicians’ adoption of technologies. Showing clinicians “what’s in it for them” in this case hasn’t required a Herculean lift – impressively, this tech quickly demonstrates how it can save a clinician time. But maximizing the value from this technology requires a few key pieces:
Integration: The health workforce spends a large majority of their time in the electronic health record (EHR) and other applications that support documentation workflows, such as front-end speech recognition solutions. The utilization and output of such solutions must be integrated into physicians’ typical use of the EHR and those applications. Requiring the download of additional apps with separate usernames and passwords from existing workflows will find most new tools dead on arrival. The more these solutions are integrated into the current work of a clinician, the more we can minimize the change management lift required to get a physician up and running.
Seamless user experience: Related to the integration piece is the need to focus on user experience. Physicians of different specialties in different geographies with different patient populations will all use this technology differently. Understanding those intended uses is key to providing the flexibility and simplicity needed for broad adoption. Similarly, integrating other applications’ capabilities – such as computer-assisted physician documentation (CAPD) tools for more complete and accurate documentation - will enable exponential gains. The goal here is to enable clinicians to navigate multiple solutions or tools – no matter their baseline workflow – in a frictionless way that supports the way they naturally work and think.
Connection to downstream actions: After we capture narrative documentation, what comes next? Can the clinician use voice to surface information or input orders? Can the created document capture an accurate picture of the patient’s complexity to enable complete and compliant billing, accurate quality measurement, and, most importantly, continuity of care for the patient? Connecting all these types of solutions is key for clinicians and provider organizations. As the global leader in population health groupers and methodologies, it is critical that we leverage this tech to strengthen data validity to ensure appropriate resource prioritization for health.
Ambient documentation tools, or “AI scribes,” are simply one way to capture documentation. Success will be determined by how health workers integrate these tools into their day-to-day workflows and by the additional power that comes from adjacent or downstream capabilities.
This space is, thankfully, moving incredibly fast. For the last 20 years our teams have been working on various technologies that have culminated in breakthroughs grounded in generative AI, implemented in a way that ensures clinicians will use them. Incremental innovation is at the core of our philosophy, and this commitment ensures that we will continue to expand our capabilities in the coming years, with a focused emphasis on the three key domains outlined above.
Auto-coding, personalized note delivery, implicit order detection - these are all on the horizon for our groups who are focused on improving the clinician and patient experience, while ensuring continued reliable population health data for our health systems.
Find out for yourself what ambient clinical documentation can do for your organization by scheduling time with us at ViVE in booth 844opens in a new tab or at HIMSS in booth 4632opens in a new tab. While there, make sure you stop by to see me or Davey for a quick hello! You can also check out solutions that help manage outpatient CDI, address the coding shortage, predict denials before they happen and support cybersecurity. If you’re not attending ViVE or HIMSS but want to learn more, contact us here.
Travis Bias, DO, MPH, FAAFP, is deputy chief medical officer, health information systems, at Solventum.
David Bowers, MBA, is product manager, ambient and virtual assistant technologies, at Solventum.