Despite traditionally being dismissed for lagging behind other industries in adopting technology, healthcare has rapidly adopted AI tools — at more than twice the rate compared to other industries.
As AI rapidly develops, new solutions provide a variety of options to address workflow tasks and support information-gathering. But the desire to operate more efficiently can lead to healthcare professionals or teams adopting unsanctioned AI tools. Known as “shadow AI,” this use of unapproved tools can expose a healthcare organization to security, data, and patient safety risks.
An industry survey revealed that 58% of frontline health system staff used generic, free AI tools for work at least once in the previous month, with 39% using generic AI weekly or more.
Putting AI into practice with patients
When it came to experimenting with AI tools to increase efficiency, Lorne Bigley, MD, FAAFP, wanted to be sure he had a verified enterprise AI he could trust.
Dr. Bigley, a family physician and medical informaticist at PeaceHealth Medical Group based in Eugene, OR, says that sometimes, when he has a question about patient care, “I look it up in UpToDate®. When doing this in front of the patient, I admit that I’m looking it up because I don’t know all the answers.”
While this isn’t hugely time-consuming, it’s a step that Dr. Bigley feels cannot be skipped. So, when he had an opportunity to potentially save time by being part of his health system’s pilot program with UpToDate® Expert AI, a generative AI-powered functionality layered on top of the evidence-based UpToDate care recommendations he already trusted, he jumped at the chance.
“I think the AI makes it more accessible,” he says, noting he found “really quick” answers to his clinical questions. “I have found it so helpful that I have it open all the time. I find the accuracy to be the same as using classic UpToDate. I especially like the ability to ask follow-up questions if needed. I’m really excited about this new technology. This is a leap forward for UpToDate.”
Incorporating AI into daily clinical workflows
Dr. Bigley notes that there are two use cases in his daily workflow when he turns to UpToDate Expert AI for rapid, reliable results and concise summaries of pertinent findings:
- Confirmation: For those moments when he has a fairly good idea of how he wants to proceed with a patient, but just wants to quickly confirm his plans, Dr. Bigley keeps UpToDate Expert AI open on a second screen, “so I can zip over there and ask it while I'm seeing the patient.”
- Preparation: Dr. Bigley also uses the AI functionality to run research queries while preparing patient charts ahead of appointments. “If you were just diagnosed with myeloma, and you were on my schedule tomorrow, I'd want to know more about myeloma – the summary, treatment, pathophysiology. Then when I'm in the room with the patient, I can explain to them more about the whys or the hows, rather than just what to do next.”
Natural language searching simplifies and speeds up the querying process, and UpToDate Expert AI expedites results to help Dr. Bigley connect to the evidence and peer-reviewed recommendations he knows he can trust from UpToDate. “It's like having a really smart medical expert who knows all this stuff sitting with me,” he says.
