AI scribes can reduce documentation time among clinicians, a new study found.
Research in JAMA found that clinicians using AI scribes spend about 13 fewer minutes working in their EHR each day and 16 fewer minutes a day working on documentation. Researchers examined how 8,500-plus clinicians—a group that included physicians, residents and advanced practice clinicians—at five academic medical centers used AI scribes.
In addition to reducing documentation time, the study found that using AI scribes was associated with a 1.7% increase in weekly visits for those clinicians (0.49 visits per week) and a $167 increase in revenue per clinician.
The use of AI scribes produced the biggest changes among PCPs, advanced practice clinicians, female clinicians, and clinicians who used AI scribes in half or more of their visits. Researchers found that PCPs using the tech, for example, spent 25 fewer minutes a day working in their EHR and slashed time they spent on documentation by 27 minutes.
Providers who used AI scribes more frequently spent 21 fewer minutes working in their health records systems and 27 fewer minutes on clinical notes, according to the research.
One factor that wasn’t affected by using AI scribes: time spent by clinicians on EHR tasks outside of work hours. Researchers suggested that any time saved on EHR work was possibly being spent on tasks like responding to messages from patients or document reviews.
The study is one of the first to try to estimate the impact of AI scribes.
