Here’s why you shouldn’t panic just yet.
You’re at the doctor’s office, sitting on the itchy, crinkly paper on the examination bed for longer than you wanted to. Your family doctor finally knocks on your door, and you’re anxious to explain your reason for booking an appointment. But as you start speaking, the doctor is glued to his or her computer, typing furiously and rarely ever looking up. They’re taking notes as they listen, but the lack of engagement causes a disconnect. Artificial intelligence could provide a solution.
Doctors are starting to use ambient listening and AI scribes to take notes during medical visits, leaving them free to better interact with their patients, as reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer. It comes as a number of studies published in the JAMA Network this year (February, August, and October) highlight the usefulness of such ambient AI scribes for physicians. Some experts, however, are raising red flags.Doing doctors’ grunt work
Bracken Babula, a Jefferson Health primary care doctor, and Dina Francesca Capalongo, an internal medicine doctor at Penn Medicine, told the outlet that they use AI scribes to help with notetaking after asking their patients’ permission to record their conversation.
