Guernsey's professional healthcare providers use artificial intelligence (AI) to help doctors spend more time with patients and get less on paper.
A smart AI assistant known as Heidi helps doctors by taking notes during patient visits and automatically creates documents such as referral letters and patient summaries that doctors check and sign off.
Dr. Farid Huludinehad, CEO of the Medical Professionals Group (MSG), said this would save doctors a considerable amount of time.
Heidi was piloted in June by a 10 MSG consultant and his manager colleagues, and is currently scheduled to be deployed gradually for all outpatient consultations.
“Now, doctors spend around 40% of their time checking when writing notes, letters and reports. This task is important, but they're far from meeting patients,” Dr. Fouladinejad said.
“There is a lot of excitement about AI in medicine, but we must be careful and wise about how we use it.
“One of the first ways to use AI for MSG is to help doctors summarize notes and letters in writing.
“This helps them see more patients and reduce waiting times.”
Dr. Michel Le Chemist said he hopes the technique will provide the best experience for patients with MSG.
“When you think about changes within medicine, for example, you take a dictaphone, a typewriter, we need to move forward, and this is part of that journey,” she said.
Dr. Le Cheminant says patients are unaware of the technology being used because Heidi works in the background “through a computer's web browser or through an app on a doctor's phone.”
“The main difference patients notice when they're in the clinic room is that they don't have to make lots of handwritten notes and don't have to type a lot on the computer. So the difference is focusing on the patient and their interactions.”
