Use of Ambient AI Scribes to Reduce Administrative Burden and Professional Burnout

While in short supply and high demand, ambulatory care clinicians spend more time on administrative tasks and documentation in the electronic health record than on direct patient care, which has been associated with burnout, intention to leave, and reduced quality of care.

To examine whether ambient AI scribes are associated with reducing clinician administrative burden and burnout. Design, Setting, and Participants: This quality improvement study used preintervention and 30-day postintervention surveys to evaluate the use of the same ambient AI platform for clinical note documentation among ambulatory care physicians and advanced practice practitioners of 6 academic and community-based health care systems across the US. Clinicians were recruited by the health systems' digital health leaders; participation was voluntary. The study was conducted between February 1 and October 31, 2024. Exposure: Use of an ambient AI scribe for 30 days. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome was change in self-reported burnout, estimated using hierarchical logistic regression. Secondary outcomes of burnout evaluated were changes in note-related cognitive task load, focused attention on patients, patient understandability of notes, ability to add patients to the clinic schedule if urgently needed, and time spent documenting after hours. Outcome measures were linearly transformed to 10-point scales to ease interpretation and comparison. Differences between preintervention and postintervention scores were determined using paired t tests.