With rising demand for services, staff shortages and ongoing budget constraints, the NHS is under more pressure than ever. Reports and surveys suggest that healthcare professionals are also facing burnout at alarming rates, and workloads are becoming more unsustainable.
But while these challenges persist, new technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) are offering a glimmer of hope to the NHS and clinicians. Conversational AI has been introduced as a practical, scalable tool to ease many of the burdens that clinicians face, particularly when it comes to medical documentation.
AI’s ability to streamline administrative tasks and support patient communication helps to free up valuable time, reduce operational costs, and ultimately help staff focus on what matters most; delivering high-quality care.
In our blog, we’ll explore how integrating conversational AI into NHS workflows can create real impact by improving efficiency and alleviating administrative strain.
How NHS workflows are shifting time away from patients
The day-to-day workflow for clinicians in the NHS is heavily burdened by administrative duties that detract from the time available for direct patient care. Things like clinical documentation, appointment scheduling, patient communications and referral letters are crucial, but have become a major bottleneck in the healthcare system – often demanding more time than the clinical work itself.
A recent survey by Florence revealed a significant administrative burden on healthcare staff. Some respondents spent seven to eight hours a day on administrative tasks, with nearly half of all those surveyed admitting that time spent on admin is impacting the quality of care for service users. Outdated technology and inefficient working methods were cited as a major cause of wasted time by 35% of managers – taking away time for patient interaction and contributing to clinician burnout.
What is conversational AI and how could it benefit the NHS?
The UK government has recently encouraged clinicians to adopt AI scribing tools to alleviate administrative burden and restore time for patient care. This is another promising sign that AI technologies are gaining traction within the NHS – particularly in areas like clinical documentation – and setting the stage for a deeper dive into what conversational AI is and how it can transform the healthcare system.
So, what exactly is conversational AI?
Conversational AI refers to the technologies that enable machines to understand, process and respond to human language in a natural and intelligent way. This could be speech recognition, natural language processing (NLP), or machine learning algorithms that can interpret spoken or written input.
The healthcare industry is already reaping the benefits of conversational AI with the transcription of clinical notes, automation of administrative tasks and assist with clinician / patient communications. Deploying AI to assist with medical documentation allows clinicians to put more focus on delivering patient care – helping to boost patient engagement and provide better job satisfaction for clinicians.
Benefits of using conversational AI include:
- Time savings – clinicians can reclaim several hours per week to redirect back to patient care.
- Cost savings – reducing manual data entry and decreasing overtime spent on paperwork can help lower administrative overheads and increase operational efficiency.
How G2 Speech’s AI solutions deliver efficiencies for the healthcare industry
One of the core components of conversational AI is utilising speech recognition – the ability to convert spoken language into written text. Something that can be up to 3x quicker than typing!
With almost 30 years of experience in providing speech recognition and workflow solutions to the healthcare sector, G2 Speech has recently launched two new AI tools to reduce administrative load on clinicians; SpeechAmbient and Aida.
Aida (our new AI Digital Assistant) has been built specifically for medical specialists to enrich clinical reporting by further automating the medical documentation process with unparallelled accuracy and efficiency – empowering clinicians to focus on what truly matters; delivering quality patient care.
Using Large Language Models (LLM), neural networks and deep learning technology, Aida provides a solution which:
- Improves medical documentation accuracy
- Refines communication, enabling accurate natural conversations and seamless documentation
- Relieves cognitive load and administrative burden
- Releases time and boosts efficiency
- Puts the focus back on patients
Martijn de Groot, Product Manager at G2 Speech, said: “Everyone at G2 Speech is incredibly excited and proud to launch our latest and greatest AI innovation for healthcare professionals – Aida. Aida completely transforms the medical documentation process by improving accuracy, refining communication, and reducing the time clinicians spend on administration.”
“We have been in the medical field for almost 30 years now, and we’re excited to help hospitals adopt AI solutions to aid their digital transformation. We’re confident that we can make the process simple and effective – letting them focus on what really matters; providing quality patient care.”
Find out more about Aida by requesting our on-demand webinar.
SpeechAmbient provides added value with the ability to record and summarise conversations between multiple people. Automated Speaker Labelling will also quickly identify and tag different speakers in a transcription (e.g. consultant/patient clinics and multi-disciplinary team meetings).
More on SpeechAmbient is coming soon – keep your eyes peeled!
Or, request a demo with one of our AI experts!