By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
Many nurses today fear AI and wonder if the intent behind AI development is to replace nurses with Artificial Intelligence. These fears were not quelled with the recent headline Nvidia Wants to Replace Nurses With AI for $9 an Hour
A better metaphor for healthcare might be to envision AI as your co-pilot in care. I recently went to a new primary care provider. I was asked before the visit if I would consent to having an AI scribe record our visit. Fascinated, I said yes. The product piloted is Nuance® Dragon® Ambient eXperience™ Express (DAX Express™) solution, now available to the Epic community. The primary group I enrolled in is part of their health system’s pilot project in their ambulatory care setting.
In talking with my primary care physician, he noted that the pilot has been underway for three months, but he can already see how it will revolutionize clinic visits. He opened an app on a cell phone and began audio recording our visit. His eyes seldom drifted to the computer screen in front of him. After the visit, I joined him at the computer to look at what DAX Express had recorded and populated in the record. I was amazed at the minimal editing the physician had to do. He told me that he was surprised at the progress with the tool in just three months – it keeps getting better and better, he noted. The developers are taking real-time feedback and incorporating the ideas of providers involved in the pilot.
I was interested in how this had changed things in his practice. He told me he felt he was making better connections with patients than when he sat in front of the computer screen typing. He noted he was happier and less stressed at work and that the technology would be a game changer in making his job easier, not harder. He loved contributing to a project with such great potential. Laughingly, he told me that he is a talker (very accurate – he is) and that initially, DAX had a challenge with some of his conversations, which seemed circular as he uses lots of metaphors to describe situations for patients. But the good news is that DAX has adapted to his style.
I have used Grammarly Premium to write this blog for five years. If you look at their product literature, you won’t see the term AI used, but that is what the product is built on. Like many other examples of cutting-edge AI, it has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI, because once something becomes valuable and familiar enough, it’s not even labeled AI anymore. I think of Grammarly as my co-pilot, which has made my writing better over time. As we look at AI products, instead of asking whether the product will take our place, ask how I can use this product to leverage my work and improve my performance.
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