Like many healthcare providers, MedEye Associates has experienced a multitude of challenges in their 50 years of providing surgical eye care to the people of Miami, Florida. Patient loads, staffing challenges, maintaining the human connection to patients, and a shortage of time to manage it all are very familiar issues.

Prior to integrating NextGen Clinical AI with its ambient AI Scribe, MedEye Associates utilized medical technicians as scribes to keep up with the growing demands of documentation.

“Ophthalmology is such a different animal than a lot of specialties out there. The language is different, the formats are different, everything’s different,” said Zachary Segal, MD, Medical Director at MedEye Associates.

One unique challenge MedEye Associates encountered involved the particular individuals they use as scribes.

“Our scribes are already technicians. Under circumstances where a scribe is needed, technicians are generally used, and they tend to be our more senior technicians since they’re the ones who understand the language of ophthalmology. They’re technicians first and scribes second,” said Dr. Segal.

This need to meet documentation volume not only limited the amount of good that these technicians were able to provide to the practice but also negatively impacted their job satisfaction. They could assist more substantially, but were the only ones with the clinical knowledge needed to provide such technical documentation.

Furthermore, MedEye Associates faced additional challenges when connecting with their patients. The documentation load was getting in the way of the one- on-one nature of a visit.

“A lot of the time I was spending with patients was sitting there inputting data and typing it all out, even with my phrases,” says Dr. Segal.

Luckily for MedEye Associates, and Dr. Segal, NextGen Mobile and NextGen Clinical AI were able to save them a lot of hassle.

“Instead of spending resources to hire this very experienced person to input data, you can now utilize them to do other things that enhance the operations of the practice, such as work up patients, execute testing procedures, and anything else that you need, all for the same overhead,” said Dr. Segal.

Dr. Segal went on to say, “Our technicians now get to do what they’re trained to do, and that’s just better for everybody.”

Dr. Segal explained that the technicians are both more efficient and more fulfilled with their roles now that NextGen Clinical AI and AI Scribe relieve them of the burden of being a scribe. Additionally, they were able to benefit from NextGen Clinical AI’s ability to use programmed macros to automatically pull up ophthalmic-specific templates, expediting the charting process. This solved not only the issue of having to divert an actual person to the role but also the fact that said person had to be well-versed in ophthalmology.

“Once you have ambient listening with your macros nailed down, you’re never going to lose it,” said Dr. Segal, highlighting the advanced risks they face when losing a trained scribe.

This automation was also able to improve the overall satisfaction of both patients and providers during visits themselves.

“It frees me up a tremendous amount to sit there and actually interact and talk with the patients, and they appreciate that tremendously,” said Dr. Segal, emphasizing the much-appreciated return to making a more human connection while providing care.

Also, practicing in Miami, where a large portion of residents speak primarily Spanish, the AI Scribe was able to help breach that language barrier as well.

“What it allows me to do for both my English and Spanish speaking patients is talk face to face with them. It gives me a lot more time; I don’t feel so pressured to move on to the next patient,” said Dr. Segal.

This added benefit comes from the AI Scribe’s ability to understand and document Spanish-speaking encounters, which allows the visit to occur unimpeded by missing words or phrases.

Between returning their trained technicians to tasks that better utilize their experience to allowing providers to be more present during patient visits, MedEye Associates was able to restore more of the human element of care—the thing that draws many to the profession in the first place. With NextGen Clinical AI, they’ll be able to do that and much more as they continue to adapt to their new AI scribe.