I once wanted to be a doctor. And I watched one work.
When I had the opportunity to see a doctor at the hospital, I had prior medical knowledge. I went to work that morning excited to see honorable and honorable medical practice in action. As the days went by, I spent more time staring at a computer screen and watching doctors click through data and notes than I did observing them interacting with patients. It was clearly making him miserable, so that night he released me with a solemn warning: “Medicine is not what it used to be.”
it’s not. It has been reshaped and distorted by data overload.
Data collection has been a priority for the healthcare industry for nearly 20 years and is one of the main goals of digital health. The data generated by these tools is incorporated into his EHR, but most of it is not clinician-friendly. They have a body of data to review, including clinical records, labs, tests, medication history, and data from remote patient monitoring devices. Although there should be enough information to paint a fairly clear picture of an individual’s health status, EHRs do not present the information in a way that provides physicians with the critical information needed to treat patients.
Much of the patient data that health systems have is unavailable to clinicians and therefore provides no benefit to patients. According to some estimates, his 97% of medical data is unused, and on one critical care bed he wastes as many as 900,000 patient data points every hour.
Digital health solutions are supposed to enhance and enhance clinicians’ ability to provide quality care, but many contribute to an influx of patient data, creating an impossible digital environment for clinicians. There is an underlying expectation that clinicians need the time, space, and mental capacity to put all this data into practice. it’s not.
While it’s true that more data is better, putting the onus on clinicians to understand everything without giving them the right tools is one of the healthcare industry’s biggest failures. Clinicians are tasked with analyzing and integrating all disparate data points, wading through a sea of data and documentation, and the sea level is rising every day. It breeds fatigue and burnout.
Are there any clinicians who have the time to consider what the ocean of data is trying to tell them and incorporate it into patient care? That shouldn’t be their job. But it’s a role that’s perfect for AI.
Utilization of health data
AI visionaries believe that our healthcare system will be powered by generative AI, that AI assistants will refill our prescriptions, connect us to the right doctor at the right time, and help people We have envisioned a possible future in which people could be helped to age at home. After his year dominated by AI hype, this future may feel imminent.
it’s not. We’re on that path, but so far the deliverables of most generative AI solutions in healthcare have been more data and even more information-packed documentation. Fully automated healthcare systems will not become a reality until healthcare organizations are able to make the most of the data they already have. A future where AI can synthesize all the data points that make up a person’s health status and present it to clinicians in a meaningful way is just as exciting and even closer.
In the future, people may be hospitalized with respiratory illnesses. Before a doctor enters the exam room, she will be able to view an overview of the patient she is about to see in her EHR. That summary is generated by the patient’s entire medical record, including past clinical notes, test results, images, and medication history. Physicians don’t have to be stuck in a sea of data and documents. Data powered by AI is now empowering doctors and acting as a lifeboat.
Doctors quickly gain a comprehensive understanding of the health status of the patient they are about to see. They may learn that the patient had a stent inserted several months ago but did not refill the blood thinner. They will discover that the patient is less active and has a genetic predisposition to congestive heart failure. To save a patient’s life, there’s no need to comb through digital data that can waste valuable time. They can make the correct diagnosis and provide a personalized treatment plan in minutes.
Currently, clinicians must spend an unrealistic amount of time combing through EHRs just to find the information they need to provide that level of care. All back-end management work should be a function of the technology.
It is technology’s job to collect, analyze, and summarize information. Most technologies in hospital environments only accomplish the first thing. Digital health should focus on making clinicians’ lives easier by doing all three. That’s how we ultimately build the AI-powered healthcare systems of the future. But in the short term, there is no doubt that we will build a health system worthy of working for clinicians.
Photo: ipopba, Getty Images
