Becker's Hospital Review

103 Executive Briefing making, we need to prove that AI platforms perform consistently better than providers in the complex, real- world environment of patients," Dr. Costantini said. He added, "Automation and AI are most valuable for repetitive, predictable tasks. There are many places in healthcare where automation can deliver information into the hands of highly trained providers, so they can make complex cognitive decisions and apply clinical judgment in the highest-value, most efficient way possible." Ultimately, technology will increase access to care, while saving money and reducing physician burnout Most physicians enter the field of medicine because they care about patients and want to help them. Dr. Costantini shared that when he was a practicing physician, he wanted meaningful interactions with patients. However, he spent most of his time on charting, orders, prescriptions, referrals and other types of paperwork. "When I started practicing medicine, none of the paperwork was digitized yet," he said. "When healthcare systems introduced electronic medical record systems, we actually saw a reduction in efficiency. This is unlike every other industry that has seen productivity improvements as a result of digitization." Care automation and AI have the potential to liberate an ocean of clinician capacity. Dr. Costantini said that clinicians spend a significant percent of time on paperwork, data entry and administrative tasks, which isn't value creating. Automating that work offers a huge opportunity to improve access to care. This is the principal that Bright. md's SmartExam virtual care platform is built around. Dr. Costantini explained, "We have a significant shortfall of clinician capacity relative to patient demand in the United States today. This isn't just an American problem, however. Great Britain wanted to expand from a five-day- a-week primary care model to a seven-day-a-week model. They couldn't because they didn't have enough clinician capacity." The mismatch between patient demand and clinician capacity means that providers must be paid more in certain markets. Care automation and AI-based solutions could help address this supply/demand imbalance and reduce healthcare costs. "Doctors and clinicians sell 20-minute increments of time, especially in primary care," Dr. Costantini said. "Patients who come in with a common cold get the same 20-minute block of time as patients with complicated medical conditions like diabetes or congestive heart failure. It's terribly inefficient. With care automation and AI, we can treat patients more quickly for common problems like the flu, a rash or a urinary tract infection. We can also speed up and improve the care for more complex patients. It's all about introducing efficiency and passing reduced costs on to the patients who really need and deserve that most." In addition, care automation and AI offer opportunities to reduce physician burnout because these solutions can reduce the technological and administrative burdens that clinicians face. They also can make it easier to care for patients with complex health conditions. "If technology can reduce the time spent on patients with low-acuity conditions and reduce the administrative burden, clinicians will have more time and emotional capacity to spend with patients who really need it," noted Dr. Costantini. Healthcare leaders recognize that automation delivers competitive advantage As hospital and health system leaders confront the new reality of nontraditional competitors and changing patient expectations, many are recognizing that their organizations can no longer stay the course with a "business as usual" approach. One reason health systems have trouble capturing additional market share—by acquiring new patients and keeping the ones they already have—is because existing patients have to wait as long as eight weeks to get appointments. This has created opportunities for new market entrants to inject themselves into the relationship between providers and patients. Care automation represents a potential solution to this challenge. Dr. Costantini sees a future for the healthcare sector where care automation becomes the norm. He observed, "Healthcare systems that can improve their efficiency 10- fold and also improve outcomes will enjoy a competitive edge and increased capacity. They will also provide better patient experiences. If we don't increase the efficiency of healthcare, we'll see a lot more care being delivered in places like Walmart. I'm not sure that's where our highly trained medical providers think the best level of care is going to happen." n Founded in 2014 and based in Portland, Oregon, Bright.md is a leading healthcare automation company dedicated to modernizing direct-to-patient telehealth for healthcare systems with its AI-powered virtual- care platform, SmartExam. Bright.md partners with premier healthcare organizations in North America, including three of the top five not-for-profit health systems and five of the top ten health systems in the United States. These partners offer SmartExam to more than 10 million patients who are seeking convenient urgent and primary care online. Bright.md has been named the Leader in the "Forrester New Wave™: Virtual Care Solutions for Digital Health" report, a Gartner Cool Vendor in Healthcare, a Vendor to Watch by Chilmark Research, and is the preferred choice of AVIA's Virtual Access cohort. Bright.md is venture-backed by B Capital Group, Seven Peaks Ventures, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Oregon Venture Fund and the Stanford-StartX Fund. For more information, visit Bright.md.

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