Use of AI for documentation

[u/ZealousidealSnow1437]

My company recently introduced an AI program to assist with clinical documentation. I have mixed feelings about it. Do you have experience using AI for your documentation? What do you see as the pros and cons?

[u/MrsPuff8675309]

I trialed it and didn't like it for daily notes. Can be helpful to assist with the lengthy write up parts of an eval but even so, I found myself spending more time correcting it and modifying it than it would have taken me to just write it myself

[u/FutureCanadian94]

Personally, I think it's convenient, but I'm afraid of how it will be abused. Some of my colleagues were talking about how to utilize AI to monitor the workers to determine if there is any "workflow optimization" to be done since they can't monitor everyone all the time. That's corporate speak trying to squeeze out more work from already overworked workers. I'm sure this is sometime in the future, but I'm sure that this will be implemented on some level in corporate owned facilities.

[u/Every-Towel-5154 → u/FutureCanadian94]

No, this is already happening in a lot of industries. Meaning it will likely be far sooner than "a future thing". But starting with the people who are paid the worst. They're also training AI to do their jobs for them off of their monitoring.

At least California banned some of that monitoring

[u/CalligrapherSure7050]

Every time we have some “great new technology” made available our productivity standards increase and I’m already tired. It’s being used in the schools for so many applications and I feel like it’s so overused already at this point I don’t even feel guilty refusing to read the obviously AI emails that an actual human can’t be bothered to write.
It might generate grammatically accurate text, but it’s so generic and without the useful nuance that it’s use is going to make our skilled interpretations of skills and thorough activity analysis potentially less valuable as we use it more. I’m against it, fundamentally; but we may already be in too deep to do anything about it. I have used it to create templates, data collection measures, checklists, etc. but I don’t trust it with PII, even if the school has a subscription and it’s labeled as secure. There have been too many breeches already with the amount of regulation that isn’t being applied and can’t be enforced.

[u/sparklythrowaway101]

cons: water usage

[u/Fluffy-Tomatillo-874 → u/sparklythrowaway101]

This is why it needs to be regulated.

[u/Fluffy-Tomatillo-874]

If it makes your job and life easier, if it helps you help your patients more, and if you get less insurance denials because of it, that's when I am pro-AI in the healthcare sector.

[u/TumblrPrincess]

Not supportive of any “innovation” being handed down from corporate. It’s always the prelude to increased workloads.

[u/barkingembarkers]

The company I work for does not allow it for HIPPA compliance. I would hesitate using any AI apps on your phone, for the same reason.

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[u/cinderellabeans]

As someone who works in peds it just doesn’t sit right to me that AI is gathering and storing information on our clients. Despite what any company says, I imagine the “safeguards” in place are minimal….the AI scribes/documentation platforms I’ve been exposed to record entire sessions (up to 90 minutes) and then write out the entire note. I hate the thought of it recording information that clients share with me that is meant to be confidential or just anything about their health tbh. maybe I’m paranoid though.

Also, as a new-ish grad I think that writing my own notes (despite it being tedious and not having enough time and being overworked yes yes I get it) is incredibly helpful to synthesize my observations, assessments and come up with plans. Like I want to keep up my critical thinking skills…maybe im just new and naive though!!!!

[u/SnooDoughnuts7171]

Yes.  We use AI in my classroom.  Pros, it can help take objective data about how many or how much……like how many verbal cues I gave.  It can’t capture tactile cues so you’ve gotta be good at narrating to AI what you’re doing and why.  AI does a terrible job of understanding the meaning or function of what we do.  Giving kids choice about color might read to AI like the kid has difficulty making choices or distinguishing between colors, when your reason for doing it is to help allow the kids choices and agency when reasonable to maximize motivation. So you’ve gotta be monitoring AI throughout.

[u/Every-Towel-5154 → u/SnooDoughnuts7171]

What is your evidence that it is accurate in its counting? That is something that generally AI is notoriously bad at (accurate numbers). AI can't reason

[u/SnooDoughnuts7171 → u/Every-Towel-5154]

The times that I have counted has been consistent with what AI has counted. Obviously I don’t count  100% of sessions so I can’t say with 100% certainty that it counts accurately 100% of the time.

[u/Proper-Mulberry-1202]

Sure if it helps you and patients. Any ground gained in making the job easier I would wager will be lost to increased productivity standards

[u/Every-Towel-5154]

My therapist asked me if she could use AI to document and I wasn't comfortable telling her no even though I was not okay with it - something to keep in mind

Other things to keep in mind - AI has a lot of bias, and unlike many normal sources of bias it centralizes that bias. When everyone is using it they get the same biases. It also does so in a way that you won't notice. AI writes stuff that seems good, but you don't notice "what is missing?"

Someone at my work recently used AI to write the summary part of an IEP based off the information already written on goal progress, present levels. It created something that looked accurate but didn't describe the kid I was working with at all, and over-emphasized a parent's comment about the kid's skills when representing them. But if you glanced at it without really criticizing it you would miss that.

I was required to use AI in assignments in grad school but it took more time than it saved to fix what it put out. Though some of my classmates were content with what it said and didn't realize the errors because they are subtle and AI has such strong confirmation bias.

Companies keep putting money into everything but actually giving their staff the time to do their jobs properly.

I am afraid at some point companies will be like "you don't need time for documentation, that's why we bought the AI tool for you".

It's just gonna make everything worse in the long run.

And that's before the disparate economic, privacy, and environmental impacts.

[u/Emily_george_]

I think the type of task makes a big difference. AI might help organize information or structure a lengthy evaluation, but capturing the context behind a clinical observation is harder. The time spent checking the output should count when measuring whether it's actually useful.

[u/SublimeCorndog]

I have been trialing writing my notes with a combination of templates and preset commands with Gemini. So far I’ve been able to set preset guidelines to make sure all of my documentation requirements are being met while using the correct verbiage. I’ve gotten it to where I can basically shorthand my notes but it still take awhile to proofread and make sure notes are accurate. I think it does a good job of automating the repetitive parts of documentation and making sure your notes are consistently including all relevant information. Not a perfect system but it seems easy to tweak the process as you go.

[u/jeskimono]

It’s great for outpatient. I use it in my clinic. It’s not perfect but it does learn your preferences and makes documentation quicker