Potential Benefits and Challenges of AI Scribes

AI technology excels at processing and analyzing large volumes of data with a high degree of accuracy. What are some expected benefits and challenges in pharmacy? | Technology Corner

by Brent I. Fox, Pharm.D., Ph.D.

We will visit the world of artificial intelligence (AI) again in this issue. Speaking of visiting, have your physician colleagues ever described the amount of time they spend documenting patient visits to their clinics? According to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, physicians spend nearly two hours completing documentation beyond the documentation that occurs in the office. That is an incredible time commitment.

As pharmacy continues to move into expanded provision of clinical services, we can expect that documentation requirements will increase. Are we going to spend nearly two hours documenting each day? Likely no, but any tool that enhances efficiency is worth exploring.

The AI tools that support physicians’ clinical documentation are generally known as AI scribes. They function by creating a transcript of patient encounters using a microphone on a secure smartphone. The tool then uses natural language processing (NLP) to summarize the visit conversation into a note for inclusion in the patient’s record. These tools do not record the clinical encounter. With this background information, are there opportunities in the pharmacy where portions of a conversation with a patient could serve as clinical documentation? Likely yes. Are AI scribes being used in pharmacy currently? Not to my knowledge. But when they are, what are some expected benefits and challenges?