Tackling burnout in Australia's healthcare industry with artificial intelligence

Australia’s healthcare professionals have long been challenged by shrinking budgets, worker shortages and an ageing population with a higher demand for care. Add into the mix a global pandemic that has not only increased patient expectations around levels of care and adoption of technology, but requires workers to manage an increasingly unfamiliar and volatile regulatory and compliance environment — Australia’s healthcare workers are overstretched and under-resourced.

In fact, results of a new global survey conducted by HIMSS reveals at least 97% of doctors and nurses have felt burned out in their career, and almost nine in 10 (88%) agreed COVID-19 has exacerbated feelings of exhaustion. Closer to home, the ‘From overload to burnout: What clinicians think’ white paper reveals the majority (58%) of Australian nurses and doctors surveyed say that their job leaves them feeling burned out.

The role of AI-based documentation technology in improving working conditions

Even before the pandemic, HIMSS found clinicians were spending around 11 hours per week creating clinical documentation and only around 13% of their working time caring for patients.

We speak three times faster than we type. Speech-based technologies powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning significantly streamline and simplify the clinical documentation processes by letting healthcare professionals use their voice in place of typing to capture complex information directly into the electronic medical record.

Nuance solutions are built on over three decades of clinical expertise and reduce documentation time by up to 45%, improve documentation quality by 36% and capture up to 20% more relevant content.

For example, Dragon Medical One (DMO) is Nuance’s secure, cloud-based speech-recognition solution that allows clinicians to document the complete patient record using voice, across solutions, platforms and devices, regardless of physical location. Powered by the latest deep-learning techniques and neural-network technologies, DMO achieves 99% accuracy with no voice-profile training required. A single cloud-based profile is auto-established at first use powered by AI algorithms and a first-class professional medical vocabulary. Manual activities such as accent adjustments and microphone calibration are automatic, providing even greater accuracy and an optimal clinician experience from the start.

Hosted in the cloud, deployment is simpler, with the burden of software maintenance removed for supporting IT teams, while affordable subscription-based pricing makes it easier for healthcare organisations to plan budgets with predictable costs.

Powered by AI and machine learning, DMO is the foundation of the future, deploying expertise to revolutionise healthcare systems.

Technology driving change in the workplace

Integrating these types of technologies across the industry will not only directly address a key source of burnout for many Australian medical professionals — clinical documentation — but it will ultimately put time back in their hands to deliver care and improve patient health outcomes.

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