Electronic medical records (EMRs) are an essential part of modern healthcare, allowing medical professionals to manage patient data, track progress, and ensure compliance with healthcare industry standards. However, until recently, the features embedded within these systems remained fairly limited. EMRs, while convenient, represented little more than a digital record of a paper chart.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has drastically changed the landscape of the healthcare sector. Subsequently, when harnessed, AI tools can improve nearly every part of your workday. In this article, we'll break down the main benefits and how you can start leveraging AI to optimize your routine.
The Problems With Most Electronic Health Records
If you're like most healthcare professionals, you probably sometimes (or always) feel overwhelmed by your daily administrative tasks. Maybe you spend so much time on documentation that it cuts into actually improving patient care. Maybe you end up working late into the night to ensure everything is done, leaving less room for spending time with friends and family.
Clinical burnout is already a rampant issue in healthcare, with research showing that nearly half of all healthcare professionals experience some symptoms.
The good news is that AI offers tremendous potential in simplifying your daily routine and enhancing the way you use EMR. At Navix Health, we're dedicated to staying on the front lines of optimizing healthcare management. Prioritizing these essentials allows you to prioritize what matters most to you: your clinical presence and relationships with patients.
Clinical Administrative Pain Points
Before diving into all the benefits of AI, it's important to validate the many issues associated with our current healthcare system. Some of the main ones include:
Excessive time spent on documentation: Updating treatment plans, writing progress notes, and entering medical data for insurance claims can take hours a day. If you fall behind, documentation can feel even more overwhelming.
Insurance compliance: Many healthcare professionals can relate to the anxiety associated with ensuring that their documentation adheres to the standards required by various insurance companies. Mistakes can be costly, leading to rejected claims, audits, or clawbacks.
Frustrating user interfaces: Unfortunately, many EMR platforms aren't intuitive, meaning you're spending extra time on administrative tasks and questioning if you're missing something crucial.
Harnessing AI Tools for Healthcare Professionals
AI has unquestionably changed nearly every industry. Regardless of your personal thoughts or fears associated with it, it's important to have transparent information about its offerings. Here are just a few examples of how AI is saving professionals time and money.
Administrative Automation
As mentioned, documentation represents one of the greatest pain points among healthcare professionals. Fortunately, our EHR system offers multiple streamlined options for reducing the time you spend taking notes or engaging in treatment planning.
Automated reminders: You can set up automatic reminders about upcoming sessions, billing needs, and paperwork requests. This streamlined option may reduce no-shows, thereby leading to better patient outcomes.
Enhanced medical coding: AI can ensure that the data entry within your medical records adheres to all coding requirements, decreasing the risk of claim rejections.
Natural Language Processing
Natural language processing (NLP) transcribes your session notes directly from voice-to-text software or audio transcriptions.
Although it may sound complicated, it's incredibly easy: you simply provide the summary of crucial points, and AI generates compliant, effective notes via speech recognition software. Our NLP is sophisticated enough to interpret even the more complex nuances of clinical jargon, recognizing terms like "trauma symptoms" or" anxiety" and adequately inputting them into your clinical documentation.
Some of the main benefits of NLP include:
- improved documentation speed and documentation effectiveness
- reduced cognitive load (less time spent thinking about the "right thing to say")
- enhanced compliance with industry standards and insurance requirements
Improved Treatment Team Communication
If you work within a milieu-based setting or coordinate with other healthcare professionals, effective communication remains a top priority.
AI-powered EMRs offer distinct advantages, including:
Alerting: AI tools can generate necessary alerts for sensitive information and inform practitioners of potential clinical concerns (i.e. notifying them about medication interactions).
Personalized treatment plans: AI operates via machine learning algorithms. Machine learning inputs suggest beneficial diagnostic screens or predictive analytics based on patient medical information and clinical progress.
Guidelines compliance: AI can streamline communication within larger healthcare systems. They can help ensure all team members adhere to appropriate clinical standards and best practices. This generally translates to better patient safety and improved patient outcomes.
Resource allocation: AI can also interpret management and cash flow within healthcare organizations. This can improve staffing and resource use based on these predictions. In turn, this may cut down on excessive healthcare costs for both patients and practitioners.
AI and Legal and Ethical Considerations
If you feel wary about implementing AI into your practice, you're certainly not alone. Many healthcare providers have valid concerns about how AI may disrupt their careers.
While AI is transforming many facets of treatment, it's unlikely it can ever truly replace the need for effective human therapists. Instead, AI is a tool that you can leverage to your advantage. However, it's important to be aware of the risks and understand how to mitigate them from adversely impacting you or your patients.
Data security: Before using any AI-based tool, it's important to check their security protocols. HIPAA compliance always matters, and you should know how patient data is collected, stored, and processed. Ensure that communication between you and your clients is encrypted and make sure your informed consent and privacy policies outline how you use AI in your practice.
Effective training: It's imperative that professionals feel equipped to use tools effectively. If you oversee or are responsible for hiring clinicians, consider how you can create a structured AI training program for employees. Incorporate case studies or shadowing to show how you (or other professionals) have successfully integrated various AI tools into your work.
Need for human oversight: Ethically, you are responsible for ensuring that AI tools support your work without undermining or replacing it. You are a human first, and your expertise and presence matter to patients. While AI algorithms may predict patient outcomes or provide a useful note, you are fully accountable for making sure it resonates with the work you do and the people you work with.
Optimizing Your Practice With Navix Health
At Navix Health, we believe clinicians deserve an optimal electronic health record that works for them. You shouldn't have to waste time trying to figure out all the features in a system. It should feel intuitive and even enjoyable to use!
NavixAI is on the cutting edge of optimizing behavioral health. We pride ourselves on saving clinicians up to 80% of time spent on documentation, and our revolutionary NavixScribe transcribes your clinical work professionally.
Unlike most EHR systems, we believe in transparent, flat-rate pricing. Our plans start at just $58.99 per month and include unlimited session transcription, access to NavixScribe, and all additional diagnostic coding tools. Our proactive approach
Interested in learning more? We have you covered. Contact us to schedule a complimentary demo today.
