M***Why " Virtual Assistants " Cannot Remove EHR Pain Points

In a recent note, I commented on the emergence of"virtual scribes" (see:Virtual Scribe Vendors Remotely Generate EHR Notes and Coding). This hospital service consists of having the treating physician dictate the details of a patent office encounter. At a later time, a transcriptionist working for a virtual scribe company remotely enters the essential data into the hospital EHR. This is by way of contrast with the original concept of virtual scribes when they were present in the examining room with the doctor and patient and performed all of the EHR keyboard entries. It should not some as a surprise that the term"EHR virtual assistant" is now taking on a larger meaning and refers to a software"assistant" than a remote physical transcriptionist. The newest notion about a"virtual assistant" was explained in a longish recent article on this topic (see:Can Virtual Assistants Eliminate EHR Usability Pain Points?). Here are two quotes from this article:But dictation software is more or less a one-way street.The challenge for AI developers is to create intelligent systems with bi-directional capabilities: [the development of computerized] virtual assistants that can more or less independently perform background information-gathering work and synthesize those results into a meaningful conversation with providers.[and]Virtual assistants could be the answer that fed-up providers are looking for. Ideally,these tools will be ...
Source: Lab Soft News - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Source Type: blogs