Physicians today spend half their day typing patient information into electronic medical record systems or doing other administrative work, according to a 2016 study by the American Medical Association. This is taking the joy out of practicing medicine and leading to unprecedented frustration and burnout. We did not go to medical school to sit behind a computer or through hours of meetings about ICD-10 coding. Our primary responsibility is to treat patients.
The good news is we are finally starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel particularly with technology that adapts to physicians’ needs. For much of the past decade, I’ve worked with physicians on clinical documentation to make sure it accurately reflects the level of care needed and delivered to patients. With almost every physician, I find opportunities to clarify the good care provided to help them enhance details that will make a difference to patients, other caregivers, and will help keep organizations afloat.
Today technology advances are starting to support that effort, making the physician’s job easier and more rewarding. Here are three technology advances I see helping physicians do a better job with clinical documentation while easing the administrative burden:
Machine Learning
Harnessing machine learning is a quest for many in and out of the healthcare industry. Clinicians and researchers see the potential of machine learning aiding with diagnoses, medical data collection, drug discovery, and robotic surgery. Although this sounds futuristic, it’s happening today, and it is helping relieve some mundane tasks physicians don’t like to do.
Technology already gives us a way to analyze our patient notes in real time and can advise how to make those notes stronger and more specific – examples include ICD-10 codes, quality indicators and secondary conditions. With algorithms operating in the background, machine learning makes it possible to derive data-driven insight or predictions from available clinical information, facts and evidence, helping to make things actionable. This can speed the process of so many things in medicine that take physicians’ eyes and focus from the patient today.
