Ambient clinical documentation shows promise for physicians

Physicians in all specialties continue to struggle with burnout, and the burden of clinical documentation—exacerbated by time-consuming workflows in the electronic health record (EHR)—is known to be a major contributor to this epidemic.1 In the past few years, physicians have employed different strategies to reduce the amount of time spent on documentation. Text-to-speech tools using natural language processing were first introduced in the late 1990s and eagerly adopted by some physicians, primarily to replace expensive medical transcription. The accuracy of these products has continued to improve, but not all physicians have embraced the technology. Another approach has been the use of scribes—documentation assistants at the elbow of the clinician, transcribing the encounter in real time and freeing the physician to focus on the patient. Some scribes use natural language processing tools to document. Another approach is virtual scribes—individuals at a remote location listening in on

Physicians in all specialties continue to struggle with burnout, and the burden of clinical documentation—exacerbated by time-consuming workflows in the electronic health record (EHR)—is known to be a major contributor to this epidemic.1 In the past few years, physicians have employed different strategies to reduce the amount of time spent on documentation. Text-to-speech tools using natural language processing were first introduced in the late 1990s and eagerly adopted by some physicians, primarily to replace expensive medical transcription. The accuracy of these products has continued to imp