Too many of us know the principle. After weeks or months of waiting, you finally get a doctor’s appointment. You sit in the exam room, anxious. When the doctor walks in, you have more eye contact with the laptop than with him. The visit seems rushed and you leave with more questions than answers.
This scene is not about indifference. It was time. Clinicians are buried in paperwork. Nearly 40 percent of their day is spent on administrative tasks. “Pajama time” has become the norm, with records and documentation long after shifts have ended. For every hour spent with patients, two additional hours are spent typing, coding, making phone calls, or filing.
We often define the problem as a shortage of clinicians. The quickest path is to free those we already have. And this is important when millions of Americans already struggle to access care. More than a third of the country lives in health care deserts, where clinics, pharmacies or hospitals are rare. In parts of Wyoming, Montana and New Mexico, picking up a prescription can mean hours on the road. For families in these areas, delays and distance are not minor frustrations. They can be dangerous.
The labor issues causing these delays are critical. Nursing shortages are worsening, with nearly half of nurses over the age of 50 and nearing retirement. Physician shortages are most severe in primary care and rural areas. These are not abstract numbers; they result in longer wait times, heavier workloads and too many patients not receiving the care they need when they need it.
Burnout makes the crisis worse. Nearly half of doctors report symptoms and hospitals experience nearly 200,000 nursing positions each year, by 2032. The cost of replacing clinicians is staggering. Every time a nurse leaves, it costs a hospital about $61,000 to recruit and onboard a replacement. A single vacant physician position can cost nearly $1 million in lost revenue and interrupted care. These losses are reflected in premiums, deductibles and patient bills.
Hiring alone will not solve this problem. Training new clinicians takes years. The redeployment of current staff time can be done in a few months. And redeployment doesn’t mean mixing positions on a spreadsheet. This means using artificial intelligence to automate repetitive manual tasks, while augmenting human expertise, so we can reallocate large numbers of doctors and nurses to patient care. That means letting them do the work they came into medicine to do.
Patients are already feeling the cost of inefficiency. Administrative waste consumes nearly $300 billion each year. These wastes do not evaporate; This is what you see on your statement after a hospital visit or on the premium deducted from your salary. National health care spending has surpassed $5 trillion and is expected to reach nearly $7.7 trillion by 2032. We pay as much for ineffectiveness as we do for treatments.
Clinicians themselves are demanding change. A recent Stanford study found that 69% of workers across all professions want AI to take care of repetitive tasks so they can focus on the work that matters most. Doctors and nurses say the same thing. They don’t want to be replaced. They want to be redeployed. And what they mean is, “Let me give more of myself to patients.” »
This change is already underway. Take prior authorization, one of the most frustrating bottlenecks in health care. Agentic AI helps reduce review times from 35 minutes to 17 minutes. At large health plans, this translates to 36,000 clinical hours saved each month, greater focus on patients and fewer delays in care. These are not abstract numbers. This means that a child with asthma receives their inhaler several days earlier. This means that a grandmother waiting for a knee replacement spends less time in pain. Redeployment does not appear as a title. This results in shorter waits, real conversations, faster care and better outcomes.
Skepticism about AI in healthcare is legitimate. Patients should consider whether systems are accurate, whether their data is secure, and whether a human clinician is still reviewing the final decision. These are the right questions. AI should never be a black box. But rejecting it outright ignores the reality: Without it, the workforce crisis will worsen. Hiring alone won’t solve burnout or rising costs. Redeploying doctors and nurses through AI-driven efficiency is an emerging lever big enough to matter. Every time an algorithm organizes a table or summarizes a case, it gives back to a clinician the ability to practice medicine the way it was meant to be practiced, with patients at the center.
We are faced with a choice. Continue to invest money in inefficiency, accepting longer waits, higher bills, and a exhausted workforce, or recognize AI as the silent infrastructure that allows the system to function. Think of it like electricity or plumbing. You don’t notice it when it’s working, but without it, everything stops.
Redeploying clinicians with AI isn’t just beneficial for doctors and nurses. It’s better for patients. That means more time, faster responses, and a system that finally feels human again.
About Joan Harvey
Jeanne Harvey is Chairman of the Growth Advisory Board of Empower.AIa company that uses specialized AI agents to simplify some of the most complex and manual processes in healthcare, transforming them into streamlined, AI-native operations. Joan is an accomplished healthcare executive with deep expertise in overseeing medical, behavioral and pharmacy clinical programs, as well as care management services, delivering measurable impact across the industry. Adept in driving health consumer engagement and behavioral initiatives, with a strong track record in developing innovative care solutions that integrate capabilities for health plans, employers and government programs.
