Deepali Misra-SharpThis is the fifth feature in a six-part series that is looking at how AI is changing medical research and treatments.The difficulty of getting an appointment with a GP is a familiar gripe in the UK.Even when an appointment is secured, the rising workload faced by doctors means those meetings can be shorter than either the doctor or patient would like.But Dr Deepali Misra-Sharp, a GP partner in Birmingham, has found that AI has alleviated a chunk of the administration from her job, meaning she can focus more on patients.Dr Mirsa-Sharp started using Heidi Health, a free AI-assisted medical transcription tool that listens and transcribes patient appointments, about four months ago and says it has made a big difference.“Usually when I’m with a patient, I am writing things down and it takes away from the consultation,” she says. “This now means I can spend my entire time locking eyes with the patient and actively listening. It makes for a more quality consultation.”She says the tech reduces her workflow, saving her “two to three minutes per consultation, if not more”. She reels off other benefits: “It reduces the risk of errors and omissions in my medical note taking.”With a workforce in decline while the number of patients continues to grow, GPs face immense pressure. A single full-time GP is now responsible for 2,273 patients, up 17% since September 2015, according to the British Medical Association (BMA).Could AI be the solution to help GP’s cut back on administrative tasks and alleviate burnout?Some research suggests it could. A 2019 report prepared by Health Education England estimated a minimal saving of one minute per patient from new technologies such as AI, equating to 5.7 million hours of GP time.Meanwhile, research by Oxford University in 2020, found that 44% of all administrative work in General Practice can now be either mostly or completely automated, freeing up time to spend with patients.CortiOne company working on that is Denmark’s Corti, which has developed AI that can listen to healthcare consultations, either over the phone or in person, and suggest follow-up questions, prompts, treatment options, as well as automating note taking.Corti says its technology processes about 150,000 patient interactions per day across hospitals, GP surgeries and healthcare institutions across Europe and the US, totalling about 100 million encounters per year.“The idea is the physician can spend more time with a patient,” says Lars Maaløe, co-founder and chief technology officer at Corti. He says the technology can suggest questions based on previous conversations it has heard in other healthcare situations.“The AI has access to related conversations and then it might think, well, in 10,000 similar conversations, most questions asked X and that has not been asked,” says Mr Maaløe.“I imagine GPs have one consultation after another and so have little time to consult with colleagues. It’s giving that colleague advice.”He also says it can look at the historical data of a patient. “It could ask, for example, did you remember to ask if the patient is still suffering from pain in the right knee?”But do patients …
