The Power of AI: Fueling Organizations and Elevating People Part I

In early 2024, if you asked a keynote audience “who’s heard of or used ChatGPT?” less than half the room would have raised a hand. Now, almost everyone’s hands go up. The adoption has happened at an unprecedented rate. Fastest technology to 1 Million Users (a few days after launch) and to 100 Million Users (two months) – but why? And how can you use this boon to benefit your staff?

Simply put providers don’t just want administrative help, they need it. Badly.

We’re certainly preaching to the choir when we talk about the significant levels of staff turnover and provider shortages that we’re facing across healthcare organizations. 78% of providers self-report professional burnout, alongside a deficit of 15,000 case managers and clinicians in the next couple of years. How can AI change this dynamic?

Administrative Burnout 

Healthcare providers spend too much of their day documenting their day.

Most direct care staff spend 40-50% of their time dealing with repetitive documentation. That's not where providers want to spend their time. And that’s not where individuals want their providers to spend their time, either.

That time commitment not only takes away from providing care, but in today’s high-pressure environment, it leaves clinicians and staff feeling burnt out. They’re left with less time to recalibrate between sessions and often go home with a pile of administrative paperwork hanging over their heads. 

Even thinking about the clinical documentation process as a QA or program director, there’s plenty of room for improvement. The potential for proactive support, better monitoring and less rework throughout the documentation lifecycle, from service provided through payment, is huge. Augmenting their work can play a significant role in making corrections and driving the right behavior. 

“Approximately 63% of US physicians
report burnout at least once a week. [R]educing, alleviating,
and preventing burnout has generated massive research.”

— National Institute of Health, 2024

SOURCE

At a foundational level, electronic health records (EHRs) have thankfully proven to be tools that vastly improve efficiency. And now layering AI on top of an EHR platform takes it to a new level. 

Transforming Clinical Documentation with AI 

The goal of our AI team is to deliver the best technology, provide the right partnership and educate everyone on the solutions we're working with. If you’re reading this you’re probably wondering, how can we use AI to gain true next-level efficiency?

Let’s explore some ways. 

Coaching and Training for Lasting Behavior Change 

Possessing useful technology is only 50% of the equation when it comes to increasing efficiency. The other 50% depends on understanding that technology. If we don’t know how to use the tools we have, we can’t hope to gain much from using them.

That’s why Netsmart ensures our clients and partners are fully trained on our solutions either by our consultants or the solutions themselves.

Bells AI empowers staff with suggestions, including context and reasoning for recommendations. After just a few recommendations, staff begin enacting the preferred language as opposed to their former phrases. The result is lasting behavior change.  
 

Data and Visibility Today, Predictive Analytics Tomorrow 

Predicting outcomes is the pinnacle of today’s healthcare AI achievements. If you're going to predict outcomes or roadblocks, you need great data capture. If people are entering bad data in their documentation, then expect skewed predictions. 

Advanced, Flexible Data Capture 

Fundamentally, you need to make it easy for staff to document and capture data wherever they may be in your organization.  

Flexibility includes by location—whether in the office or community—with or without connectivity and across devices, from handheld to desktop. It also entails a variety of data capture options, from typing, photo import or voice-to-text to ambient listening and transcription. The goal is to make it easy and effortless.  

Assisted data capture during and after the session leaves the provider better able to focus on the client session, as well as capture critical data from anywhere. 

Up Next…

In our next piece, we’ll dive into thinking about AI as a strategy to align with your organization’s roadmap, as well as how AI can be rolled out across the entire organization to optimize processes and empower staff beyond clinical AI.