Using Automated Medical Scribe Software to Easily Reduce Physician Workload

With automated medical scribe software, practices can use the latest technology to reduce physician workload. For busy clinicians and medical practice staff, it can sometimes feel as if there are not enough hours in the day to cover all the bases. A finite amount of time is divided between giving patients the attention they need and thorough documentation completion for patient visits, while a healthy work-life balance seems out of reach.

For this reason, how to reduce physician burnout, improving joy in work, and enhancing the physician-patient relationship are themes commonly top-of-mind with professionals throughout the healthcare industry.

With ever-increasing government regulations around healthcare that make documentation more laborious, providers may sometimes feel as if they are drowning in documentation duties as they end up working late into the night. With these added time-drains, there are fewer resources and less time available to devote to patients in face-to-face visits.

What’s more, as these added stressors contribute negatively to a healthcare professional’s work-life balance, burnout – academically defined as “a combination of exhaustion, cynicism, and perceived inefficacy resulting from long-term job stress” – can take hold.

Staff turnover is not the only downside of burnout. Studies have shown that burnout increases the risk for serious issues such as surgeons making grave mistakes, patient mortality due to nurse fatigue, and medical students developing alcoholism.

Luckily, help has arrived in the form of Augmedix, a powerful new software application that streamlines the visit documentation process and helps physicians reclaim valuable time and energy in the process. Through a combination of a remote scribe and AI (artificial intelligence) technology, Augmedix makes visit documentation easier and faster. The results of these enhancements are improved patient-physician relationships and outcomes, reduced burnout, and improved joy in work and work-life balance.

How Augmedix is Optimizing Visit Documentation

Augmedix automated medical scribe works via a smartphone or other smart device which is active during the patient visit. Clinicians and patients interact naturally (as they normally would) while Augmedix virtual healthcare data specialists observe the interaction remotely. As they work, AI assists scribes with “smart” AI technology that enables them to document the visit quickly and comprehensively – this makes for a speedier and more accurate documentation process. The scribes also provide live clinical support should any issues arise.

Once these virtual healthcare data specialists have extracted relevant details from the clinic visit and used this automation technology to create the medical note, the medical documentation then uploads into the clinician’s EHR for sign-off.

The overall effect? Visit documentation within the EHR becomes faster, easier, and less cumbersome. Augmedix’s highly trained remote scribes handle the brunt of the documentation work that leaves physicians with more time to focus on other things. Not only that, the accuracy and preciseness of documentation when done through Augmedix allows many providers to increase how much they are reimbursed for services provided.

Using Automated Scribe Software to Enhance Patient-Physician Relationships

Patient-physician relationships are of the utmost importance for patient outcomes. Whether during an in-person visit, telehealth appointment, or with a follow-up call, email, or text – effective and clear communication between patient and physician is critical for both increased patient satisfaction and improved patient outcome.

By the same token, poor communication, “can have severe negative implications in clinical care, such as impeding patient understanding, expectations of treatment, treatment planning, decreasing patient satisfaction of medical care,” and more, according to the same Duke article.

With Augmedix, clinicians see increased freedom from the necessary but tedious task of visit documentation and data input, plus more time and energy to focus on those all-important patient relationships.

“Augmedix allows me to have more time communicating with patients, clinical staff, and other physicians,” says Dr. Hengbing Wang, a California-based clinician specializing in hematology and oncology. “The quality of care goes up with more communications.”

In addition to making improvements to communications, implementing Augmedix in medical practices has been proven to provide clinicians with another precious resource: time. Physicians using Augmedix in their practice have reported saving between 2-3 hours per day on documentation.

How Automated Medical Scribe Software is Improving Clinicians’ Work-Life Balance

Even during normal times, healthcare professionals face an extraordinary amount of pressure and stress. During the COVID-19 crises – which has embattled healthcare for the last year and a half – this trend has continued aplomb as, “61% percent [of healthcare workers surveyed reporting] fear of exposure or transmission, 38% report[ing] anxiety/depression, 43% suffer[ing] work overload, and 49% [experiencing] burnout,” according to the EClinicalMedicine Journal.

For as important as it is to invest time reclaimed from tedious documentation tasks into patient relationships, it is equally important for physicians to reclaim time to disconnect from work for their own emotional health. Achieving a positive work-life balance is one of the most important ways to manage stress – but all too often, healthcare professionals find themselves working late into the evening, on weekends, or sacrificing personal freedom for work obligations.

One of Augmedix’s most powerful applications is its ability to restore a more equitable work-life balance to physicians. Clinicians using Augmedix physician burnout solutions reported a 40% increase in satisfaction with their work-life balance. By increasing clinicians’ freedom from important yet menial tasks, Augmedix enables more physicians to disconnect from work and spend time with their families.

Find Out How Augmedix Can Help

Is your practice searching for a cost-effective solution optimizing visit documentation, cultivating relationships, improving patient outcomes, and increasing work-life balance satisfaction among staff? Augmedix is the automated medical scribe that can help. Contact one of our consultants today to find out how.