San Diego-based Scripps Health said it saw a 50 percent increase in patient messages since the onset of COVID-19, San Diego Business Journal reported Sept. 20.
"There are 44 messages per day received on average, with some physicians receiving over 100 per day," David Wetherhold, MD, chief medical information officer of ambulatory systems at Scripps Health, told the publication. "Each message takes 30 to 120 seconds to review and complete. This has some physicians spending an hour per day just on messages."
Dr. Wetherhold said this task is one of the top five complaints that his physicians express.
"Some [situations] are even worse, where they are doing in basket messages until 2 a.m., only to get up a few hours later and repeat the process," he said.
In order to help reduce this administrative burden, the health system is piloting generative AI in responding to patient messages.
Currently, one physician at Scripps Clinic Anderson Medical Pavilion in La Jolla, Calif., is leading the pilot, with the aim to expand it to all five of its primary care physicians and two advanced healthcare providers next month.
"The initial implementation is focused on primary care," Shane Thielman, CIO of Scripps, told the publication. "Primary care is most impacted by in basket messages. … We are in an initial adoption phase and learning and adapting to the technology in a controlled manner so that we can expand to additional care teams."
The health system is working with Epic Systems to refine the AI tool through weekly check-ins and clinician feedback.