CARE: Collaborative using Artificial intelligence to Reduce EHR documentation burden
The problem
Adopting electronic health records (EHR) in hospitals is transformative, improving patient experience with greater efficiency and data-sharing. However, the burden of EHR documentation means physicians often split their attention between their patients and a computer screen during appointments, contributing to physician burnout and patient dissatisfaction.
The solution
This initiative will assess the impact of using generative artificial intelligence to lessen physician administrative burden through tasks like recording patient interactions, synthesizing information and generating clinical notes in the EHR. A multi-disciplinary team will also evaluate its impact on clinical efficiency, physician wellness and patient experience across southeastern Ontario’s six hospital organizations, from rural community, acute tertiary to post-acute care.
“We already have a physician shortage that is felt across Canada. We must work smarter, not harder, to reduce the administrative burden on physicians and prevent them from leaving the profession. Artificial intelligence holds promise to tackle some of the challenges we face. We aim to harness artificial intelligence to reduce the burden and improve clinical efficiency, physician wellbeing and patient experiences.”
The innovators
Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC) is a not-for-profit tertiary care, multi-specialty academic teaching hospital in Southeastern Ontario that provides a full range of complex, acute and specialty services to over 500,000 patients. For this initiative, KHSC is working with five partner hospitals in the southeastern Ontario region as a collaborative. The partner organizations include:
- Brockville General Hospital
- Lennox and Addington County General Hospital
- Perth Smith Falls District Hospitals
- Providence Care Hospital
- Quinte Health