Healthcare AI is like the subtitle of the first “Star Wars” movie, giving physicians “a new hope” that they can practice present, joyful medicine, an academic health system leader told Becker’s.
Those reasons for optimism include ambient listening to automate clinical documentation, intelligent chart summarization and inbox message triage, said Laren Tan, MD, chair of medicine and COO of the faculty medical group at Loma Linda (Calif.) University Health, during an episode of the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.”
“There’s so much pressure that we’re feeling as if we’re fighting an empire, much like within ‘Star Wars,’ only the empire we’re battling has to deal with the clicks, the inboxes, the documentation, access, throughput, trying to review medical histories,” he said. “That’s where ‘a new hope’ comes in. It is not necessarily just a new hope in how we do things, but really a new hope in both relief and renewal.”
AI adoption is driven by need and emotional urgency, not novelty or curiosity, he said. The results are starting to pour in among Loma Linda providers: a 10%-35% reduction in after-hours documentation time; notes closed in minutes rather than hours or days; and improved patient experience scores, including reports of physicians being more “present” during visits.
Some clinicians still look at the computer screen even with ambient AI, indicating that such a big cultural change takes time and training. “Just because you have some new AI technology, it doesn’t necessarily mean it actually relieves everything,” Dr. Tan said.
However, using another “Star Wars” analogy, some providers have been akin to “The Mandalorian,” “armored” by habit and not willing to give AI a try, Dr. Tan said.
One such group was surgeons, so Loma Linda identified and addressed their barriers to adoption: identity, workflow pride, fears about loss of control. Validation had to come from their peers. They responded to proof, not mandates.
“From a surgical perspective, imagine a silent assistant who never scrubs out,” Dr. Tan said.
That reframing of ambient AI has transformed some surgical groups from nonusers of the technology to completely bought in.
“All it took was just one or two early adopters, one or two different surgeons, and this skepticism started to really change,” Dr. Tan said. “So much so where it’s, ‘I can’t do my clinic visit without ambient AI or utilizing AI in some shape or form to be able to help me be more efficient.'”
As an academic medical center, Loma Linda is also training the next generation of physicians in the technology. AI literacy priorities include the safe use of AI for documentation and evidence synthesis; understanding bias, ethics and transparency; explaining AI and its supported decisions to patients; and accountability via keeping a human in the loop. The health system lets residents use AI to make post-training adoption seamless.
“I’m hoping all these things they’re learning now here at Loma Linda will help them be that much more efficient and also responsible in applying AI,” Dr. Tan said.
AI success five years from now looks like clinicians practicing at the top of their licenses, burnout continuing to trend downward, providers leaving work with energy left for their personal lives, and medicine becoming more attractive to the physicians of tomorrow, Dr. Tan said. A litmus test for satisfied patients? When they say: “My doctor really listened to me.”
“AI isn’t the hero of the story,” Dr. Tan said. “Our clinicians are going to continue to be the heroes of these stories. But we need to position ourselves, through governance structure, through these narratives, to make sure we’re using it responsibly for the future of medicine.”
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