Ambient AI enhances patient experience at Parkland
New tech highlighted during National Health Center Week
National Health Center Week (Aug. 3-9) is an annual celebration with the goal of raising awareness about the mission and accomplishments of America’s health centers over the past five decades. For physicians in Parkland Health’s network of neighborhood-based health centers, they are celebrating the use of ambient artificial intelligence (AI) that is enhancing the patient experience.
Ambient AI refers to artificial intelligence technology that uses natural language processing and machine learning to interpret medical information by automatically generating clinical notes without requiring the provider to type or dictate. In simpler terms, with the patient’s consent, ambient AI sits in the background of the exam room, listens to the conversation between the provider and patient, and then generates a clinical note. The provider reviews the draft note and makes any necessary edits before it is officially entered into the electronic health record. It is designed to reduce documentation burden, improve accuracy, and enhance patient safety.
“Since the implementation of ambient AI in May, we have heard great feedback from the users,” said Noel Santini, MD, Vice President and Senior Medical Director of Ambulatory and Population Medicine at Parkland.
- Some of the benefits include:
- Streamlining documentation
- Improving accuracy by capturing real-time patient language and clinical thinking
- Allowing providers to focus on the patient
- Can help catch subtle clinical clues that might otherwise be missed
- Supports high-reliability care by adding a “second set of ears” in every appointment
The use of ambient AI can pick up on subtle messages that could easily be overlooked, Dr. Santini noted.
“In one of our high-volume outpatient clinics, a medical provider was seeing back-to-back patients. One of the patients was a Spanish-speaking woman in her mid-50s who presented for a regular annual check-up,” Dr. Santini said. “The physician, aided by the ambient AI documentation tool, began the visit after obtaining consent from the patient. As the patient spoke through a certified interpreter, the AI captured the full dialogue between the patient and the provider.
“After the visit was over, the provider was reviewing the AI-generated note and something caught his attention: the system had transcribed the patient describing ‘occasional faint chest discomfort when climbing stairs.’ The physician did not recall hearing this from the interpreter during the patient’s visit. It seems that it had been said softly during the visit, perhaps mostly as an awareness rather than a complaint,” Dr. Santini noted, adding the detail could have easily been missed, but thanks to the AI-generated transcript, it was “right there in black and white.”
Following up, the physician called the patient that evening and arranged for a stress test that uncovered signs of coronary artery disease. “This saved the patient from a possible coronary event, and she is now in treatment,” he said.
Not only is ambient AI providing quality results for patients, it is enhancing provider satisfaction as well.
“I’ve worked at Parkland for 26 years and there is always something different for us to learn and adopt,” said Sentayehu Kassa, MD, Associate Medical Director for Population Health. “But this, it’s night and day. This is a game changer, it’s a magic wand making my life and other physicians’ lives easier.”
Community is at the core of the Community Oriented Primary Care (COPC) concept, which began in 1989 when the old East Dallas Health Center opened. In 2015, the aging facility closed and was replaced by the Hatcher Station Health Center. Most recently, Parkland opened C.V. Roman Health Center in the Red Bird area of southern Dallas County, as well as Jubilee Park Community Clinic in southeast Dallas County. Today, Parkland operates 15 health centers throughout the county, making primary and preventive healthcare more accessible.
In addition, Parkland operates a geriatric clinic and senior outreach services, the Homeless Outreach Medical Services (HOMES) program, as well as providing correctional health for the Dallas County adult and juvenile jail system.
For a list of health center locations, visit www.parklandhealth.org/locations. For information about services available at Parkland, visit www.parklandhealth.org.
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