Doctors turn to imperfect AI to spend more quality time with patients

To doctors, pajama time means homework. In fact, it's a common phrase describing the nighttime ritual of finishing up clinical notes about the patients they saw earlier that day. As demands for notes and data to chronicle patient interactions from hospital administration and insurance industry payers have increased, the amount of time physicians spend on the computer has squeezed their already tight schedules. A 2017 study published in Annals of Family Medicine found that primary care physicians spend nearly six hours a day interacting with their electronic health records systems during and after clinic hours. Amid pandemic burnout, the stress is enough for doctors to hand over the work of writing clinical notes to an AI-based tool, even if it could create patient data privacy risks and medical errors.