By Lauren Johnson
Ambient clinical AI is now assisting doctors before, during, and after patient visits. Using the newest artificial intelligence, Cullman-based Systemedx has created a program that can summarize patient information, listen to doctor-patient conversations and complete medical documentation.
Before the doctor enters the examination room, AI will use the patient chart and provide a summary of information, including the patient’s reason for the visit, their medications, allergies, previous treatments, things for the doctor to watch out for and recommended solutions. Then the ambient listener will record, listen and document conversation in real time.
“When you go into the room, you can just push the record button on your tablet or smartphone, and it will listen to the conversation. When it hears certain pieces of the conversation, it can start an order for the provider, ordering medication or getting you in for an x-ray,” said Systemedx President Kevin Bonner.
The AI program will remember the doctor’s preferences for things like referrals or labs. The doctor can review, edit and change the information before approving anything. All of this saves the doctor time and allows her to focus on the patient during the visit instead of worrying about typing information on a keyboard.
“I’ve heard some doctors that do dictation coming out of the room say, ‘I have to sit there and make a mental note when I say my dictation that I need to talk about this.’ So, they’re focusing on what they have to dictate later, rather than the patient,” Bonner said.
AI engineers at Systemedx work with physicians to modify the technology to their needs, putting in the questions the doctor wants to ask or updating the exam template the doctor wants to use. The AI program will follow the template provided instead of developing its own or answering other questions that aren’t on the template.
“It will actually fill out the template for you with the exact wording that you want it to say, so you fix a lot by creating good templates and good forms,” Bonner said. “Then our system lets you send that ambient to a human for review. If the doctor doesn’t have the time to review it, they can route it for human review.”
Systemedx is currently expanding their facility to create more room for the AI department. The company is building offices for these reviewers who will check the AI and make sure it listened and recorded correctly. Doctors have the options to review the information themselves, have someone from their medical practice review it or send it to the reviewers at Systemedx. This way a human is always in the loop.
“We build all the technology here in-house,” Bonner said. “It helps us build our AI prompt engineers, and we can adjust it fast too. Because every doctor practices a little bit differently, it’s nice to be able to adjust the AI to prescribe and do things their way.”
The ambient listening system can also listen, understand and translate Spanish. A doctor can talk to their patient in Spanish, and the AI technology can print out a summary or chart in Spanish or translate it into English.
“We’re at the tip of the iceberg with this technology. We’re just now getting it where it’s actually very practical to use every day,” Bonner said.
This ambient listener technology was introduced about a year ago and is now being adopted nationwide by medical professionals in various fields including orthopedics, primary care, neurology, pulmonology and others. Bonner expects to see more physicians implementing this technology at their facilities in the near future.
“That’s our next thing, rolling this stuff out, getting best practices in place and building standard operating procedures for providers so these tools can go in easily at minimum cost. We want to get it where it’s easy to deploy and very cost-effective,” Bonner said.
The basic AI is $100 a month. If the physician needs to use a prompt engineer more or use Systemedx reviewers, the price will go up from there. The AI software can be loaded onto a device or a window surface, and there are buttons to switch to different modes that allow for dictation or ambient listening. The doctor can also talk to the chart, requesting it to pull up something like the patient’s blood pressure records or an x-ray image.
“AI is becoming more practical now,” Bonner said. “It’s transitioning from the cool, dreamy state to real world, and doctors are asking how they can use it.”
