Doctors increasingly using AI-driven apps for documentation during the pandemic

If someone were to ask, “has the process of visiting/consulting a doctor changed during the pandemic?”, there is absolutely no doubt that every single person will answer with a resounding “Yes!”. And it is quite obvious too. Ever since the pandemic hit India way back in 2019, the entire healthcare system as we know it has completely changed!

Now, almost all hospitals and sizable healthcare providers sari focused more on being able to provide the necessary care and treatment to patients suffering from COVID 19. Moreover, the fact that in most countries people have been strongly advised against making any unnecessary trips outside their homes, healthcare organizations have quickly adapted to this “new normal” by making doctor consultation and appointments online and most private healthcare enterprises have invested heavily into digitizing their infrastructure as much as possible

AI technology, especially voice-to-text, is playing a significant role in driving efficiency in hospital processes. .. One of the ways in which A.I. has been employed on a large scale in recent times when it comes to healthcare is through A.I.-driven, cloud-based apps, which are being used for documentation by doctors and other healthcare workers as well. Patient lists, medical records, patient’s medical history, as well as other data such as patient progress notes and response to a particular method of treatment or a particular vaccine, all of this data and so much more can now be documented with a high degree of accuracy with ease using the AI-driven Speech-to-text technology.

Speech-to-text, as the name suggests, is a technology that converts whatever is being spoken into the device into text in real-time. This text can be saved, formatted and shared in a variety of ways, depending on the software/program being used. When combined with Natural Language Processing (NLP), the technology becomes even more useful. In the healthcare domain, this A.I.-based technology has the following benefits:

● It offers opportunities to improve the documentation process of medical records.

● It enhances the quality of documentation.

● It reduces the cost and time of recording information.

● It improves the quality of services provided to patients.

● It also supports healthcare providers in medico-legal matters.

Speaking of benefits, the ultimate test for any A.I. technology in the field of healthcare is not only how much it can benefit the doctors and other healthcare personnel, but also how useful it ends up being for the patients at the end. After all, the entire setup is dedicated to making patients’ lives and recovery easier.  Below are some ways in which the patients get benefitted from the application of this technology.

● Reduced documentation time will help the doctors increase the patient care capacity. This, in turn, will help more patients get access to healthcare services, making healthcare more accessible and personalized. . As a result, healthcare providers will invest even more into other technologies like these, thus creating a win-win cycle for both the healthcare providers and the patients.

● Cloud-based speech to text application provides flexibility to use anywhere anytime and makes it easily shareable.  This eases the collaboration among healthcare professionals to create medical documents like discharge summaries and OT notes which reduces the probability of errors happening in the creation of these documents.

● Healthcare documentation is increasing because of the rise in patient awareness and healthcare research.  Accurate speech to text allows these documents to be created and shared in a hassle-free manner which further enhances the quality of data that can be used by downstream AI models.

So, are we witnessing the future of healthcare documentation evolving during the Covid 19 pandemic? Definitely. Not only that, but the degree to which AI.I.-based technology and cloud-based data storage services will be employed in the healthcare industry in the near future, is anyone’s guess.

Authored: Amar Dani  Founder and CEO, Shubu.ai