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Does using a digital scribe save GP time?

Background

One of the many beguiling recent promises of new technology is that it will save professional time. AI-based tools called ‘digital scribes’ help with recording and transcribing conversations between clinicians and patients and then generating documentation for the consultation. They aim to reduce the time clinicians spend on documentation, but the timesaving benefits they promise are rarely thoroughly tested using empirical research (collected by observation, interviews, or surveys, for example.)

It is likely that digital scribes, or at least some form of AI documentation, will be widely used in the future, so it’s important to evaluate them now, and to do so independently.

Approach

We will carry out a study looking at the impact of a commercially available digital scribe on professional time in primary care and will refine the methodologies used for studying how time is spent and how technology is used in healthcare.

We will address the following research questions:

  1. What outcomes do we want to see from the use of digital scribes in terms of staff time (defined as time spent on clinical documentation) and how is the technology intended to work?
  2. Does the use of the technology achieve these desired outcomes (compared to before the technology was implemented?)  
  3. What work system design requirements are needed to make the best use of the technology and achieve its productivity benefits?
  4. Can a methodological framework for studying technological innovation aimed at improving productivity (not clinical practice) be devised? If so, what further work would be required to do this?

Funding and ethics

This study is funded by the Health Foundation’s grant to The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (THIS Institute). It is independently led by THIS Institute.  

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