I am a third-generation physician: my grandfather was a general practitioner, my father is an orthopedic surgeon, and I was a primary care pediatrician before getting into EHR technology and health IT. It’s fascinating to reflect on and hear about their medical experiences as I experience mine in healthcare technology. They’ve seen things change from, in their minds, the “golden age” of medicine, before billing and insurance became an administrative priority, and now I see how technology and AI are rapidly changing the industry.
I like to think that my generation of doctors (and those before) didn’t necessarily go into medicine because we are tech-savvy. It was about taking care of people and their health. As technology has been introduced into clinical practice, it has become extremely important to have robust change management, training, and education programs in place for successful adoption.
But today, many generations are tech-savvy, even those of us who aren’t part of the digitally native cohorts. It was a huge equalizer. The bar is not as high from a change management perspective, and there is no longer the previous distrust or fear of technology. We now see that if innovative tools can help clinicians very easily take the right evidence-based actions for better patient care, that is very powerful and compelling.
GenAI is a new technological era for clinicians
The adoption rate of enterprise AI tools in healthcare has been incredible; he leads other industriesand I have never seen the technology adopted as it is today. I think it comes down to AI solving real-world problems for clinicians.
For example, as a physician, EHR deployment didn’t necessarily solve a problem I had. Of course, in the long run it was better for patient safety, centralized organizational data, and made it easier to send an order to the lab or pharmacy. But it didn’t solve any tactical problems in my daily workflow.
AI solutions are In fact solve real-world problems for clinicians. Ambient voice technology and diction make note-taking easier, allowing clinicians to stay focused on the patient and maintain eye contact, instead of looking down to write notes or enter them into an EHR. Relevant clinical decision support becomes part of the workflow, removing cognitive load. Instead of a busy clinician stopping what they are doing to read an UpToDate® topic, they can get a quick answer from Generative AI (GenAI) or access related evidence via ambient integrationsthen go on with their day. These evidence-based tools and the clinical experts who support them can help distill the vast amounts of medical knowledge into succinct and actionable information.
