Tech Explained: Here’s a simplified explanation of the latest technology update around Tech Explained: How an AI scribe is alleviating burdens at an FQHC in Simple Termsand what it means for users..
AI scribes are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in healthcare. Healthcare leaders largely agree that these tools alleviate clinicians’ administrative and cognitive burdens, offering an enticing solution to the pervasive problem of burnout.
At Hawse Health, a West Virginia-based federally qualified health center (FQHC) serving primarily Medicaid patients, the benefits of AI scribe technology are clear.
“[AI scribes help] ensure that notes are being completed in a timely fashion and are meeting medical necessity and accurately capturing the services provided,” said Johnathan Lyon, assistant director of behavioral health services at Hawse Health. “Rural services are always being tasked with doing more with less, and anything that’s going to give clinicians time back is going to improve access.”
Still, implementing the technology came with challenges. Hawse Health had to contend with both the overarching challenges to AI implementation, such as gaining clinician buy-in, as well as the logistical challenges of upgrading technology with limited resources.
Using an AI scribe to ease clinician burdens
Hawse Health began piloting the Heidi AI medical scribe in October 2024 and expanded its use across the organization in November of that year.
The AI scribe technology transcribes patient-provider interactions in real time and creates clinical notes for clinicians to review and edit before submitting. The technology also prompts clinicians to record patient consent, alerts them to the next steps after the appointment and assists them with tasks such as drafting referral letters.
The most significant benefit of the technology has been helping clinicians complete their notes on time. According to Lyon, overdue notes were a significant problem, but after the Heidi tool was implemented, very few providers have been overdue on their clinical documentation.
But the benefits of the tool go beyond clinical documentation efficacy. Ken Powers, director of behavioral health services at Hawse Health, shared that the technology plays a key role in recruitment.
“We’re in a rural area, and it’s very competitive in trying to get clinicians on board,” he said. “When I’m doing interviews, it’s helpful for them to know that we have a tool that is going to aid and help them complete their documentation. So, it’s really become a part of even the interview process.”
The tool has also proved useful in training. Powers shared that when newly licensed providers are learning to write clinical notes, the AI tool can help by offering revisions to show them how to improve their documentation skills.
Further, the tool can create templates for documentation required for various types of therapy, which is also helpful for training new recruits in behavioral healthcare.
“It’s really awesome for me as a clinical supervisor to be able to show them in real time, ‘This is what reality therapy looks like, this is what person-centered therapy looks like, this is what CBT [cognitive behavioral therapy] looks like,'” Powers said. “And that visual helps them to learn and grasp the concepts much quicker than if I were doing that without the assistance of AI.”
In addition to documentation and training, the AI tool is helping Hawse clinicians offer individualized patient care, particularly within the behavioral healthcare arena. For instance, Lyons said that he uses it to create customized homework assignments for patients undergoing CBT.
“I was able to have it generate a coping skill prompt with Taylor Swift songs for a patient,” he shared.
AI scribe implementation strategies & challenges
The AI scribe tool offers significant benefits for clinicians; however, gaining buy-in from clinical teams is essential to encourage adoption.
At Hawse Health, leaders organized demonstrations of the tool and held discussions with clinicians to ensure they understood how it worked. They also solicited feedback from clinicians to identify and address potential pitfalls associated with using the tool.
“We didn’t wait until an ethical dilemma happened; we were addressing it before as much as we could,” he said. “‘Let’s talk about it. What could be the concerns?'”
Additionally, gaining clinician buy-in is critical to garnering patient trust. Lyon shared that many of the FQHC’s patients are older and aren’t comfortable with the idea of AI tools being involved in their care. So, initially, leaders were concerned about patient acceptance of the AI scribe technology.
“You’re trying to explain a large language model to them, and you’re not speaking their language,” he said. “I thought that would be a bigger issue, but I think the clinicians have done a very good job of explaining it in a manner that makes sense, and having a functional understanding of how it works has enabled the clinicians to do that.”
However, the challenges of AI implementation go beyond change management within the facility. As an FQHC operating in rural West Virginia, Hawse Health faces logistical barriers to implementing new technology. For instance, the community Hawse serves only recently got fiber optic internet, and there are still bottlenecks that make accessing it difficult, Lyon said.
Lack of internet access is a widespread issue in the United States, with federal data estimating that 19 million people, most of whom live in rural areas, lack access to reliable broadband internet services. Lyon further noted that technology developers are still largely focused on building tools for urban areas, and so, they aren’t considering challenges specific to rural communities, like unsteady WiFi.
But the lack of reliable WiFi is an infrastructure problem too big for any one FQHC to feasibly solve. And so, for now, Hawse Health clinicians are left to develop their own workarounds.
“So, for example, learning where the ‘dead spots’ are, where you’re going to lose cell phone coverage, where you’re not going to be able to communicate,” Powers said. “Being aware of certain places, where I wouldn’t be able to use Heidi if I needed to, because there’s nothing — there’s no WiFi, there’s no cell phone coverage — you start planning in your brain like, ‘If I’m going to do a telehealth session and make use of Heidi, I’m going to have to get to point B before I can do that.'”
Still, despite these issues, Powers and Lyon agree that working with an AI scribe is an undeniable improvement.
“I’m thinking about myself personally,” Lyon shared. “In December of last year, my father was diagnosed with cancer, and I was able to go to all of his appointments, take him to surgeries, PET scans, infusions, radiation treatments, and I still was able to see the same amount of people because I had Heidi and wasn’t stuck spending hours documenting. And I still had the cognitive ability to do that when I probably would’ve been completely drained otherwise.”
Anuja Vaidya has covered the healthcare industry since 2012. She currently covers the virtual healthcare landscape, including telehealth, remote patient monitoring and digital therapeutics.