Andy Crowder, chief digital officer at Advocate Health, noted how far health systems across the country go on the AI deployment journey, some hospitals are still in a cautious experimental mode, while others have expanded tools in multiple clinical and operational settings.
Claude said Charlotte, North Carolina-based advocates (which operates 69 hospitals in all six states) are one of the health systems that have already reached the scale stage.
“We have over 15,000 users interacting at scale with AI assistants, listening or predictive analytics around, and we are the largest environment listening deployment for Microsoft Dax,” he declared.
Here are five benefits for advocates because they are bullish on AI, Claude said.
Reduces clinician burnout
Crowder notes that AI tools, including environmental hearing models and tools that generate insights from EHR data, reduce clinicians’ cognitive burden and stress levels.
By automating documents and browsing relevant patient information at times and places when needed, these tools can free up providers so they can focus on patient care rather than managing tasks, he said.
“A regular nurse, a medical surgeon, spends four and a half hours a day to record her work – not caring, just recording her work. If we can get three and a half hours? Then, she only has one hour because [the AI tool] Listen and documented for her and put it into practice for comment. ” Claude explained.
He said the shift has increased the job satisfaction of advocate clinicians. Using DAX means staff spend less time managing their work and more time caring for patients, which is probably their favorite job. Environmental listening tools also help reduce the time clinicians can take notes outside of work hours.
Better employee retention
Crowder notes that employees retain higher job satisfaction.
In addition to DAX, he highlighted Artisight's computer vision platform for virtual care as a tool to reduce burnout and make employees feel more supportive. The platform uses smart sensors and machine learning systems that are distributed throughout the hospital to unlock previously inaccessible data from clinicians. It also has algorithms that can perform monitoring such as falls and pressure ulcers or detect when a patient enters the room.
The operating rate of nurses using this platform dropped from 13% to 3%, Claude said.
“Our belief is that finding a healthcare system that implements AI at scale in its platform solutions will make employees and teammates happier. It will create a destination for people to want to be an employee,” he said.
Clinical improvement
Claude said monitoring for adverse events using Artisight’s platform will lead to better patient outcomes, as nurses can intervene before the situation escalates.
He added that the technology also reduces the number of unnecessary interventions for nurses.
Perform nursing tasks such as turning the patient around to prevent bed sores. Sometimes this happens organically – the patient may turn it three times during sleep, Crowder notes.
Artisight's platform uses computer vision to detect such movement and then record it – meaning that nurses do not have to wake up the patient or perform tasks that have been completed,
Enhance patient experience
Crowder recalls a 73-year-old patient he recently met at an Advocate’s hospital who was hospitalized on the third day after his heart attack.
Thanks to virtual care technology in the room, the patient's daughter said she let her father sleep there alone, rather than spending every night in the hospital, just like he did when he was in the hospital in the past.
Crowder notes that environmental hearing tools can also improve patient experience by improving patient trust in their providers.
He said patients are often more satisfied with the level of care they receive when their providers actively talk to them rather than typing and viewing screens.
Save costs
Crowder notes that there are multiple ways for advocates to start savings in cost – those savings are expected to grow over time, he predicts.
For example, fewer falls and pressure ulcers due to computer vision monitoring mean that the patient has a shorter hospital stay – therefore, the flip bed is faster.
Reducing the documentary burden on clinicians means reducing overtime hours must be reduced, Claude said.
He added: “When providers are more effective in the clinic and cognitive burden is reduced, that provider will be more likely to bring new patients to their schedules because they can do these types of things because they are in a better position.”
Photo: Ipuba, Getty Images
