In a candid conversation with our Special Correspondent, MTI News delves into the thought process and the advantages of leveraging Ambient Clinical Intelligence (ACI) in Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Management and how it dramatically increases the accuracy of treatment.
- Can you explain how Augnito is utilizing Ambient Technology to enhance the management of Electronic Medical Records (EMR)? What benefits does this technology bring to healthcare professionals and institutions?
At Augnito, our aim is to utilize Voice AI technology to empower physicians to seamlessly interact with patients, eliminating the burden of manual data entry tasks. Augnito’s Ambient Clinical Intelligence (ACI) technology converts unstructured, natural conversations into structured EMR data. This is achieved through the implementation of advanced features such as Far Field Speech Recognition, Multi-lingual Speech Recognition, Speaker Diarization, and Generative AI.
By automating administrative tasks and facilitating accurate clinical coding, physicians can fully focus on patient care. With our cutting-edge technology, physicians can easily incorporate the Ambient technology app into their smart devices and conduct consultations while the AI transcribes and summarizes the conversation in real-time. This transcription includes all the necessary fields required for proper documentation in the EMR system, such as chief complaints, medical history, diagnoses, treatment plans, prescriptions, and follow-up details. The structured data is then seamlessly transferred into the EMR system with a simple voice command. Besides understanding medical vocabulary for over 50 medical specialties and sub-specialties in any accent of spoken English, the AI also comprehends 10 regional Indian languages and global languages like Arabic.
Running an EMR system can be time-consuming and requires clinical expertise. Currently, inputting data involves navigating through menus and fields, making it a complex and lengthy process. However, with Ambient technology, physicians can now have a free flowing conversation, and the data is automatically detected, structured and input into the appropriate sections.
This AI-powered solution not only reduces the administrative burden on doctors but also improves the quality of patient care and the overall in-clinic experience. It enhances provider efficiency and satisfaction, leading to tangible benefits such as improved accuracy in documentation, faster Turnaround Time (TAT), and increased patient retention or the ability to see more patients. In the current setup, doctors often have to divide their attention between multiple screens instead of focusing solely on their patients. This technology brings back the ability to have meaningful interactions, including eye contact, which greatly enhances the overall experience.
We are dedicated to providing healthcare providers with the opportunity to concentrate exclusively on their patients once again!
- Privacy and security are paramount in healthcare. How does Augnito ensure that patient data remains confidential and protected when using Ambient Technology in conjunction with EMR systems?
When dealing with technology that involves collecting sensitive personal information, concerns naturally arise regarding the extent and security of the data being captured. In healthcare, these concerns are heightened due to the sensitive nature of the recorded information.
To address these potential concerns, the following measures can be implemented:
Data Encryption: Implement strong encryption measures to protect data both during transmission and while at rest. This ensures that even if data is intercepted, it remains unreadable without the appropriate decryption keys.
Access Controls: Enforce strict access controls that limit the individuals who can access patient data. This includes role-based access and multi-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized personnel from accessing sensitive information.
Anonymization and De-identification: Prioritize the anonymization and de-identification of patient data whenever possible. This helps protect patient privacy by separating personal identifiers from the data used for analysis.
Consent and Transparency: Obtain informed consent from patients before integrating Ambient technology and AI into EMRs. Patients should be fully informed about how their data will be used and have the right to opt-out.
Regular Audits and Monitoring: Continuously monitor access logs and conduct regular security audits to identify and address any potential vulnerabilities or suspicious activities.
Data Retention Policies: Establish clear and strict data retention policies that outline how long patient data will be stored and when it will be securely deleted.
At Augnito, compliance is a top priority. We meet industry standards such as HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2, and ISO 27001, ensuring complete transparency and confidence within our customer base.
It is crucial to strike a balance between innovation and protecting sensitive health information.
- As the healthcare industry becomes increasingly digital, interoperability is a significant challenge. How does Augnito address this issue to ensure seamless integration of its technology with various EMR platforms and healthcare IT systems?
The overarching vision at Augnito is to help institutions establish a strong backbone for a centralized healthcare infrastructure—one that benefits both providers and patients. It has been well documented, worldwide, that there is a pressing need for truly digitized and interoperable healthcare systems. This infrastructure ensures standardized record keeping, improves the coordination of patient care, enables better clinical research, enhances data analytics and breakthroughs, and reduces the overall cost of healthcare delivery.
With an ethos rooted in human-centric design principles, Augnito has ensured that our solutions are seamless to install & integrate. Spectra offers straight out-of-the-box compatibility and direct dictation into any EHR/PACS/RIS, without the need for native integration. It is also 99% accurate from the get-go and comes with a host of productivity enhancing features. Clinicians can customize their experience with Macros, Custom Vocabularies, Spelling Preferences, and support for over 50 medical specialties and sub specialties.
With Voice Services, clinicians can voice-enable and optimize their workflows with advanced APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) & SDKs (Software Development Kits). It is also seamlessly compatible with over 75 clinical softwares, including eClinicalWorks, Epic, Cerner, Athena, and many more.
Another aspect of creating a smooth integration progress is having a robust Customer Success strategy. We are determined to enable all types of individuals and organizations to integrate, whether they are first time users of Medical Voice AI or customers transitioning from legacy solutions. It is this relentless focus on easy onboarding and continuous assistance, via dedicated managers, 24×7 technical support and free-of-cost personal training sessions and product demos, that has enabled Augnito to integrate its solutions with over 450 global healthcare providers and over 12 thousand clinicians (in 20 influential geographies, including India, United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Australia), since 2020.
- Could you share some real-world examples or success stories where Augnito’s Ambient Technology has made a substantial impact on healthcare workflows or patient care outcomes? How do you see the future of this technology evolving in the healthcare sector?
Ambient Clinical Intelligence has, in its current beta stage, already generated some intriguing results. It has helped clinicians save 2+ hours per day on average and facilitated up to 80% average reduction in their documentation timeline. With Ambient, doctors have reported taking 30 seconds or less to create clinically structured documents.
Doctors are also enjoying the intuitive interface, with feedback suggesting that the software is extremely easy to use for individuals with varied experience in using such technology. Another standout feature is the support for over 10 regional Indian languages, as well as global languages like Arabic—which allows doctors to converse in dialect that the patient is most comfortable with. Perhaps the most meaningful insight is that doctors are now able to focus solely on their patients, without having to keep glancing at screens or making physical notes. This has greatly improved the overall experience for both parties during a consult.
The future will see the use of Voice Biomarkers to identify neurological ailments such as Alzheimer’s, mental health diseases such as Depression, and pulmonary diseases such as Covid 19. Currently in Augnito’s R&D pipeline is the aim to leverage over 2500 biomarkers that are present in the sub-language elements of the human voice alone to detect an ailment by simply hearing the patient speak. These biomarkers will essentially work as a diagnostic tool for the AI—scanning for voice patterns in the speech that will help in the detection of disease via a database of linguistic intonations, inflections, cadence, and more.
For more information do visit- https://augnito.ai/
Mr. Rustom Lawyer from Augnito supplies the inputs, and the publisher holds no responsibility for them.
