From clinician shortages to tedious documentation processes, you face many demands in your healthcare practice. If you're wondering how artificial intelligence (AI) can help you ease your workload, you're not alone.
Many long-term post-acute care (LTPAC) facilities are turning to AI clinical documentation solutions to lighten their administrative workload, and they're finding that these tools can streamline their processes in multiple ways. Not only can these tools help you write faster clinical notes, but they can also catch documentation errors and yield insights into a patient's condition that may have gone overlooked.
While healthcare organizations must take special care to mitigate the risks of using AI, the benefits of proper implementation are major: less clinician burnout, improved operational efficiency, elevated profitability, and better patient health outcomes.
By understanding the role that AI clinical documentation plays in LTPAC facilities and how AI-powered tools like ChartPath can help streamline patient care, you can take your practice's profitability to the next level.
AI clinical documentation uses natural language processing, machine learning, and large language models (LLMs) to streamline your everyday healthcare documentation processes. While traditional note-taking requires tedious manual documentation, record generation, and storage, AI clinical documentation uses ambient AI medical scribes to:
Record patient encounters
Transcribe conversations
Summarize information
Draft clinical notes
Check for documentation errors
AI-powered assistance with documentation not only reduces administrative burdens and improves staff efficiency, but it can even reduce clinician burnout and drive better patient health outcomes.
From potential errors and wasted time to mental fatigue and regulatory concerns, manual documentation brings multiple challenges for busy clinicians. In skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and LTPAC settings, staff have a higher workload than ever, and the extra administrative burden that comes with manual documentation can contribute to burnout and turnover, even affecting the patient's quality of care.
Potential problems with manual documentation in LTPAC facilities include:
Creating distractions. Up to 40% of nurses' shifts are consumed by electronic documentation. With so much time spent on these administrative tasks, clinicians spend less time with patients, affecting care outcomes.
Allowing errors. Roughly 72% of all electronic health records-related risk issues are the result of inaccurate documentation. These errors can impact patient care and reduce your reimbursement rates. Implementing AI clinical documentation can help you reduce human errors, improving your patient care and profitability.
Causing liabilities. Errors are common in manually transcribed notes, and that can mean compliance violations and even malpractice lawsuits. Generative AI tools can capture conversations and accurately document interactions, protecting your organization if it comes under scrutiny.
Manual documentation also contributes to employee turnover by increasing clinician burnout. About 1 in 4 clinicians are considering leaving their profession due to burnout, citing manual documentation as a key cause of their frustration. Burnout-related attrition only makes the current clinician shortage worse, so implementing AI clinical documentation solutions could address turnover issues as well.
Whether it's generating and editing medical records or recording patient encounters, AI is transforming the way clinicians handle their documentation processes. AI tools are elevating clinical documentation processes by:
Enabling automation, completing tedious documentation workflows faster
Improving documentation accuracy, ensuring that all processes are recorded correctly
Capturing interactions in real time, reducing the need for clinician recall
These clinical documentation improvements can reduce the number of errors, enhancing your compliance with regulations such as HIPAA and HITECH. For example, real-time data capture and note-taking tools record information during the visit — without staff needing to wait until the end of the day to manually record what happened during a patient's appointment. This minimizes the chances of oversights and helps you document your tasks, diagnoses, and care plans.
While AI clinical documentation technology is still in its nascent stages, several longitudinal studies are evaluating the impact of AI tools on clinician efficiency. However, in many applications — including LTPAC facilities — the early outlook is that these tools do more than just improve productivity; they also elevate accuracy and compliance.
Whenever you incorporate new tools at your practice, it's important to be sure that they align with regulatory requirements. AI clinical documentation solutions made specifically for clinicians can help you comply with patient privacy regulations, in addition to enabling better health outcomes and boosting profitability as a result.
For example, AI clinical documentation tools ensure that your note-taking practices align with HIPAA, HITECH, and other regulatory requirements, helping you prove your compliance with the appropriate standards. Demonstrating your compliance can also help you meet certain quality metrics under the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), resulting in higher reimbursement rates for delivering value-based care.
ChartPath's AI functionalities enhance your documentation compliance. The ChartPath platform incorporates AI in clinical decision support but routes every decision through human governance first, creating an audit trail of decisions. You can gather all the information you need to make the right call for your patients and prove compliance. The result is better patient care quality — and higher reimbursement rates.
For AI clinical documentation tools to be most effective, they must be compatible with your existing EHR systems. Otherwise, your team may have difficulty navigating between tools. While some staff training and trial periods may be necessary for climbing the learning curve, the leading AI tools should be easy to learn and to embed into your current workflows.
ChartPath offers seamless integration with other AI-powered tools, and our dedicated support team is with you 24/7 to help you overcome any difficulties you may have. That way, you can reduce your administrative burden and get back to doing what you do best: caring for your patients.
The industry is still exploring the applications of AI in clinical data management, but healthcare organizations are already finding many ways that these tools can streamline their processes. As the technology matures, AI will keep shaping care delivery and operational outcomes. The result will be a lighter administrative workload, improved productivity, fewer documentation errors, and less clinical burnout, all while boosting your profitability.
ChartPath leverages AI to create an EHR solution with all the functionalities needed to help you care for your patients. Our frictionless, intuitive platform has led the industry since 2012, offering encounter documentation, coding and billing, and even full revenue cycle management (RCM) capabilities to your team. Reach out for a live demo today.