A study published in JAMA reports that artificial intelligence-enabled ambient documentation, also known as "AI scribes," is linked to small but measurable reductions in clinician electronic health record (EHR) usage and documentation time. The findings were announced on Apr. 1 by investigators from Mass General Brigham and the University of California, San Francisco.
The study is significant because documenting patient visits in EHRs is a key factor contributing to clinician burnout. While AI scribes have been shown to help reduce burnout, there has been limited large-scale research into how these tools affect daily clinical workflows.
Researchers tracked the use of AI scribes across five U.S. hospitals over more than two years, comparing over 1,800 clinicians using the technology with 6,770 control clinicians at the same institutions. The results showed that AI scribes led to an average reduction of 13 minutes per day in EHR usage and 16 minutes per day in documentation time—a relative decrease of 3% and 10%, respectively. Productivity also increased slightly, with clinicians seeing about half an additional patient per week.
"Previous studies link ambient documentation to a significant decrease in burnout, but the underlying drivers of this reduction have been unclear," said Rebecca G. Mishuris, MD, MS, MPH, Chief Health Information Officer at Mass General Brigham. "The modest reductions in documentation time we observed are unlikely to fully account for changes in burnout, underscoring the need to understand how these tools change how clinicians approach care delivery while using them."
Improvements were most notable among primary care physicians, advanced practice providers, female clinicians, and those who used AI scribes for more than half their patient encounters. Clinicians who adopted frequent use experienced double the reduction in total EHR time and triple the reduction in documentation time compared with less frequent users; however only about one-third used them this often. Revenue gains from increased productivity were statistically significant but minor—about $167 more per month for each clinician using an AI scribe—and there was no meaningful difference between groups regarding after-hours EHR work.
"Ambient documentation use is expanding rapidly across U.S. health care, making it essential to study how these technologies are impacting clinicians in real time," said Lisa Rotenstein, MD, MBA of UCSF School of Medicine and Brigham and Women's Hospital. "Our study demonstrates the impact of AI scribes in diverse real-world implementations at multiple sites. It also emphasizes the value of helping clinicians become comfortable with the technology so that they are reaping its full benefits via frequent use."
