AI-driven medical documentation may help ‘combat the epidemic of burnout’ in neurology

Even before the pandemic, neurologists have been facing issues with burnout and heaping amounts of stress. Meanwhile, the demand for neurologists continues to climb faster than the number of new clinicians in the field.

A 2017 study by the journal, Neurology, found that about 60% of neurologists reported at least one symptoms of burnout (Busis NA et al.). Large contributors to this burnout are clerical burden and inadequate support staff. The Mayo Clinic also projected a 19% shortage of neurologists by 2025, with many choosing to cut back hours and focus on research or administrative work at the expense of patient care.

Understanding what drives burnout and how it can be abated is paramount for the future of health care. Burnout isn’t only driven by long workdays and high-pressure environments.

According to a perspective in the New England Journal of Medicine, the primary drivers of burnout in health care come from inadequate support, escalating workloads, administrative burdens, underinvestment in public health infrastructure and the inability to provide proper patient care (Murthy VH.). On average, clinicians of all specialties spend about one-third of their time documenting patient data in the electronic health record, a study in Applied Clinical Informatics found (Joukes E et al.).

Burnout in the medical profession is higher than at any point in recent history. For neurologists, statistics around burnout are even more alarming. To serve the needs of their patients, neurologists need support that addresses the issues triggering burnout: administrative burden, inadequate staffing and overloaded schedules.

One method for managing burnout is to address the repetitive, unbillable time spent filling out medical documentation in the EHR. Adopting an AI-driven medical documentation service aids neurologists by alleviating some of the stressors driving industry-high rates of burnout and helping neurologists spend more time seeing patients and less time on technology and administrative tasks.

By reducing the pressure of administrative burden, neurologists can reduce these stressors and mitigate the cycle of burnout and staffing shortages that threatens the medical profession at large.

AI-driven ambient medical documentation streamlines these cumbersome administrative tasks, allowing neurologists to focus more on their patients in a number of ways. This technology uses automated speech recognition to transcribe the natural conversation between clinicians and patients, then leverages natural language processing — including large language models, medical documentation specialists and structured data models — to create structured, comprehensive medical notes, which are seamlessly inserted into the patient’s EHR.

Here is an example of how this technology can aid a neurologist through a patient’s entire visit:

• Before the visit: AI medical documentation products can handle precharting, digitization of a patient’s previous records, along with their patient history.
• During the visit: The technology captures a patient’s complaints, diagnoses, medications, specialties, symptoms and treatments. It then compiles all this information into a medical note and after-visit summaries. The products also offer point-of-care support, including reminders, orders and referrals — all administrative tasks that a clinician would otherwise have to perform.
• After the visit: The structured medical notes are seamlessly inserted into the EHR for final review and sign-off by a clinician.

These AI-driven medical documentation technologies can help combat the epidemic of burnout by streamlining information capture in the EHR and reducing administrative burdens. This improvement also can help boost neurologists’ sense of well-being and increase the number and quality of patient interactions.

As health care leaders and clinicians continue to seek practical and timely solutions to help combat burnout, turning to ambient medical documentation products is a beneficial starting place.

References:

• Busis NA, et al. Neurology. 2017;doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000003640.
• Joukes E, et al. Appl Clin Inform. 2018;doi:10.1055/s-0037-1615747.
• Looking at burnout and attrition in neurology: Expanding the gender gap? https://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-professionals/neurology-neurosurgery/news/looking-at-burnout-and-attrition-in-neurology-expanding-the-gender-gap/mac-20501993. Published Oct. 2, 2020.
• Murthy VH. N Engl J Med. 2022;doi:10.1056/NEJMp2207252.
• Study suggests 60% of US neurologists experiencing burnout. https://www.aan.com/PressRoom/home/PressRelease/1515. Published Jan. 25, 2027.

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Davin Lundquist, MD, is chief medical officer at Augmedix, a health care technology company that delivers ambient medical documentation and data solutions to health care systems, physician practices, hospitals and telemedicine practitioners. Lundquist is also a family practitioner at CommonSpirit Health in Camarillo, California.