overall population’s health due to other chronic conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes because screenings, preventative care and overall self-management have been deferred or neglected. “To address these issues, healthcare provider organisations are placing greater emphasis on clinician well-being, operational efficiency, and patient access to care, and using technology to do so,” says Rhew. For example, clinicians spend a significant amount of their time documenting in electronic health records (EHRs) during patients’ medical appointments. Industryspecific tools such as ambient clinical intelligence can automatically transcribe, codify, and organise the conversations that occur between a clinician and patient into clinical notes. The clinician can then review the notes, make edits, and seamlessly upload it to the EHR. “This type of technology is potentially transformational,” says Rhew. “However, adoption of newer approaches in healthcare can be slow. Even evidence-based practices that have been well established can take 10-15 years before they are widely adopted. For this reason, it is important that we continue to explore and address local barriers to adoption, whether they be related to workflow, technology or culture. “We also need to remember that change often requires a sense of urgency. With clinician burnout and the resulting staff shortages negatively impacting operations and finances for nearly every healthcare provider organisation across the world, technologybased approaches that can help alleviate these issues may soon become industry must-haves.” Advances in times of crisis Despite the challenges created by the pandemic, the urgent need to continue providing care did accelerate many positive advancements that were enabled by technology. “Data sharing facilitated global collaboration, which helped accelerate the development of life-saving vaccines,” says Rhew. “Fragile supply chains were stressed but later strengthened and optimised through technology. Large populations of people with HEALTHCARE 157 AI solutions could help healthcare providers to reduce clinician burnout and staff shortages Photo: iStock/FG Trade
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