Twenty years after President Bush laid out his vision for electronic health records, the U.S. has spent $100 billion for systems that keep doctors and nurses glued to their screens
Electronic health records when used appropriately are miles better than paper. More than half the article talks about the benefits before noting the two problems that paper does not solve. Which is crossing records from one system to another and the bloat that has been added as different specialties need to input different things. There will always be room for improvement but saying EHRs are a problem fully neglects that they are still a massive improvement.
My primary care doctor resigned in Jan 2025 because it was too depressing being on screens all the time…
Everytime we find a doc we like, they leave to do concierge medicine.
AI is a mixed bag, and a whole lot of hype.
But voice-to-text auto-generation of patient notes during dr visits will be a huge win for the medical profession. Data entry by doctors and nurses will be cut down 10x (just review what the software transcribed, make edits, and sign off).
You really gotta hope those 5-10% LLM interpretive miss rares don’t hit your particular case.
Also if it fucks up, the doctor is still liable for malpractice right? Or do they get to kick that ball down into the abyss of trying to get LLM companies to take responsibility for their products.
My fiancé works at a vet clinic that uses it and she says the doctors love it. The customers, however, don’t like that there’s an AI that listens to their visit so they just say it’s “software”
Transcription software has existed for decades and has no need for AI. It doesn’t need to interpret anything you’re saying, shoving AI into it is literally just making things worse.
In this particular use case, no. The LLM not only transcribes, but it summarizes, drafts, and categorizes as well (ICD-10 codes, cross-referencing medical history, etc.).
Very useful for overworked and under-resourced healthcare workers.
Look, AI bolt-ons to existing software and processes often do suck. But this specific instance is a real positive use-case.
Every technology has a place where it’s useful - with LLMs, it’s just mostly been “let’s throw it at everything.” In most cases, it’ll fall away as useless, and a few cases, it’ll stick where it really adds value.
teledoc is eliminating doctors being able to pratice elsehwere, or privately, its pretty severe that you wont get quality healthcare at all.
