Health IT executives told Becker's that what they want from their EHR is less time in the EHR.
"I wish EHRs would focus functionality on keeping the clinician out of the EHR needing to manually document every little component and navigate through the system with multiple clicks and instead be able to autogenerate input or be able to anticipate where in the record the clinician needs to navigate to," said Kathleen Zaski, MSN, RN, vice president of IT at Reno, Nev.-based Renown Health.
"I believe this type of functionality would require more advanced artificial intelligence to be embedded within the EHR and more integration of tools clinicians utilize today."
EHR vendors have been getting in on the AI trend as part of an effort to automate some clinician functions. In March, Epic partnered with Microsoft to use its GPT-4 generative AI technology in its EHRs.
Chapel Hill, N.C.-based UNC Health CIO Brent Lamm told Becker's the GPT tools could reduce "pajama time," time spent by physicians answering patient questions within MyChart, by leveraging AI to draft answers.
"We'll use it to help physicians and nurses spend less time at the keyboard and to help them investigate data in more conversational, easy-to-use ways," said Seth Hain, senior vice president of research and development at Epic, in a recent Microsoft blog post.
CIOs share the same goals of getting providers away from the computer and back to the bedside.
EHRs should "get out of the way of our clinicians and become a frictionless value add solution," said Jon Brown, CIO of Ashville-based HCA North Carolina Division.
Much of clinicians' time within the EHR is spent dealing with billing and RCM processes. Mr. Brown noted that EHRs should be more "patient-centered instead of RCM-centric."
"Simply, let providers be providers. Realistically, I think a modern EHR should be able to limit the number of clicks and amount of typing," said Darrell Bodnar, CIO of Whitefield, N.H.-based North Country Healthcare.
"We are getting closer with some of the latest AI and voice recognition contenders, but a great feature would be to accurately predict and automate the provider's behavior and leave them to care for the patient and review the work of the EHR."
Mr. Brown is also looking for his EHR to "enable workflow through integrated device and ambient voice capabilities."
In May, Epic added Suki, an artificial intelligence voice assistant that can generate clinician notes through ambient listening.
Epic isn't the only EHR vendor aiming to automate workflows and give clinicians time back in their day. In April, Oracle Cerner partnered with the FDA and John Snow Labs to create AI-based tools that can extract clinical notes from the EHR.