Artificial Intelligence Assists with EHR Data Organization

According to a recent study, physicians devote 62 percent of their time per patient reviewing electronic health records (EHRs), with the most time-consuming portion being clinical data review. To increase efficiency, researchers studied the development of an artificial intelligence system to assist with reviewing patient information.

As EHRs became increasingly common, physicians have spent more time studying these data bases to review clinical data. With more data being stored in EHRs, users could experience a type of information overload. By incorporating artificial intelligence technology to work with these EHRs, physicians will avoid burnout and improve the patient experience.

In this prognostic study, researchers created an AI system to organize patient records and improve data retrieval. To ensure that the system was fast and accurate, a nonblinded, prospective study took place at Stanford University.

Recruitment emails were sent to all physicians in the gastroenterology division, and 12 of them agreed to participate in the study.

“Each of the clinicians participating in the study received 2 referral records: 1 AI-optimized patient record and 1 standard (non–AI-optimized) patient record. For each record, clinicians were asked 22 questions requiring them to search the assigned record for clinically relevant information,” the study stated.

The clinicians reviewed records from June 1 to August 30, 2020. Researchers compared the time and accuracy of the AI-optimized patient record and the standard patient record. Physicians were then asked to assess their overall satisfaction with the AI system, their preferred method of review, and other topics to evaluate clinical utility.

Compared to the standard patient record review, the artificial intelligence system saved physicians 18 percent of the time used to answer clinical questions. Additionally, there was no significant change in accuracy when physicians retrieved the data with the AI system vs without.

Eleven of the 12 physicians indicated that they preferred the AI record review to the standard review.

“Despite a learning curve pointed out by respondents, 11 of 12 physicians believed that the technology would save them time to assess new patient records and were interested in using this technology in their clinic,” the study stated.

Through the study, the AI system was able to help physicians extract relevant patient data in a shorter amount of time while remaining accurate.

“This finding is particularly germane to the ever-increasing amounts of medical data and increased stressors on clinicians. Increased user familiarity with the AI system, along with further enhancements in the system itself, hold promise to further improve physician data extraction from large quantities of patient health records,” the study stated.

When artificial intelligence is integrated into the healthcare system, physicians can use it as a tool to provide better and more efficient patient care. Not only does it improve the productivity of healthcare, but AI can also lighten the load for physicians.