AI News Monitor

Experts reveal how this AI trend is helping doctors make one tiny change to how they treat patients. And it’s a BIG step.

One of America’s leading surgeons, Dr Michael Ewing, has been using AI technology to cut down time spent on documentation and chart notes, allowing him to see and pay better attention to more patients each day.

The technology, SurgeOn Scribe, is an app feature that uses AI to listen to patients and transcribe medical notes so doctors don’t have to.

Dr Ewing says that it has completely transformed his practice. It allows him to pay les attention to endless writing and documentation and focus more on his patients. What’s more, freeing up time using the tool now allows him to see up to seven more patients a day. Other surgeons have also echoed his feelings.

In recent times, medical personnel across the US and Europe have been working under really high-stress situations, with the number of patients and amount of workload increasing while the number of doctors remains the same.

But reports show that doctors spend the equivalent of nearly two full days on paper work and administrative tasks. An AI tool that helps them free up time by automating administrative and documentation tasks might just prove to be a game changer. Doctors are taking it up, and it’s not happening in the US alone.

In the UK, seasoned general practitioner, Dr. Deepali Misra-Sharp, has also been using a free AI-assisted medical transcription tool to listen and transcribe what patients say during consultations.

Dr. Misra-Sharp says she started using the Heidi Health app around September 2024 and it has made a huge difference for her. Before that, she had to write things down while listening to patients, which according to her, “took away from the consultation.”

The increasingly lopsided ratio of doctor to patients in the country also means that the number of minutes she can spend with each has been drastically reduced. This had been a significant problem for her for some time, and she was no longer enjoying her work due to time pressure.

But with Heidi Health, Dr. Misra-Sharp doesn’t have to write. She now lets AI do the transcription while she spends those few vital minutes fully focused on the patient. “I can spend my entire time locking eyes with the patient and actively listening,” she says. “It makes for a more quality consultation.”

Amazon One Medical is also developing AI tools to allow their clinicians do just this.

“Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize health care delivery, and we’re just at the beginning stages,” says Prakash Bulusu, chief technology officer at Amazon Health Services.

Another company at the center of the AI trend is Corti, a software company based in Denmark. It has also developed an AI tool that can listen to healthcare consultations, transcribe speech and even suggest follow-up questions for doctors. And this technology is now used in up to 150,000 patient interactions daily across the US and Europe.

Doctors will need to be careful, however, given that AI transcription tools are not incapable of errors. There are still many questions and risks that need to be managed before AI can contribute more significantly to healthcare, but this tiny new approach to medical care is helping doctors like Michael Ewing enjoy their consultations again.