Increasing Physician Efficiency While Reducing Burnout
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Background on ION and cCARE
Integrated Oncology Network partners directly with physicians, hospitals and other healthcare providers to offer the latest services and technologies to their patients. Founded in 2008, ION has grown to more than 50 centers across the country, providing a complete and integrated continuum of care – diagnostic testing, radiation oncology, medical oncology, urology and other ancillary services.
Affiliated with Integrated Oncology Network (ION), California Cancer Associates for Research & Excellence, cCARE, is the largest full-service private oncology and hematology practice in California. cCARE delivers the highest quality medical oncology, chemotherapy and radiation treatments, supplemented by a large research and clinical trials program. With eight clinical and business offices in the San Diego and Fresno areas, cCARE provides patients with care beyond treatment no matter where they call home.
Pioneering Voice-Driven Workflows in Oncology
Integrated Oncology Network (ION) together with partner California Cancer Associates for Research and Excellence (cCARE) announced a landmark strategic partnership in 2023 to integrate Knowtex’s cutting-edge voice AI technology for automated medical notetaking, coding, and ordering into cCARE’s clinical oncology operations to enhance workflows and patient care experiences.
Empowering Clinicians with Increased Wellness and Patient Connection
The partnership between Knowtex and ION, with cCARE aimed to give clinicians their valuable time back. By reducing administrative burden, oncologists at cCARE can invest more time in diagnosis, treatment planning, and patient consultations, improving the overall quality of care and patient outcomes.
"Oncologists suffer amongst the highest rates of burnout in medicine - as high as 52%."
The Growing Problem of Clinician Burnout
“Burnout” has become an omnipresent colloquialism for medical providers. It can manifest in many forms - a 2018 meta analysis showed 142 unique definitions amongst 182 studies on burnout - but anyone in healthcare has likely experienced some element themselves.
The ubiquity of burnout is particularly evident in the cancer clinic. Oncologists suffer amongst the highest rates of burnout in medicine - as high as 52%. The effects of burnout are tangible, worsening oncologist retention, increasing the risk of developing depression, and, in a majority of cases, has a negative effect on personal relationships.
Burnout causes are multifactorial, however, a key contributor has been the proliferation of increasingly complex IT tools and bureaucratic demands.
"Spending 37% of clinician time with the EMR or taking tens of clicks to order a single medication practicing medicine takes valuable face time away from the patient interaction."
Solving Health IT and EMR Administrative Burden
Present health IT infrastructure requires unintuitive behaviors when it comes to patient care. Spending 37% of clinician time with the electronic medical record (EMR) or taking tens of clicks to order a single medication takes valuable face time away from the patient interaction. Excessive data entry and inefficient EMR user interfaces add-on to the already-growing administrative burden for physicians, exacerbating burnout.
Several changes have been proposed to address the role that health IT plays in physician burnout - the adoption of scribes, clinical process redesign, genuine care for physician work-life balance, the development of “personal resilience strategies” and so on and so forth. Few, if any, of these changes have been routinely implemented in cancer clinics. Medical scribes, for instance, are used by <10% of clinicians in the U.S. The existing clinical workflow is frequently unintuitive and constrained by technical and human resource limitations that impair meaningful efforts to address burnout.
Meaningfully addressing burnout at its roots necessitates moving beyond existing systems. New technologies like generative AI allow for voice AI automated workflows in the clinic, offering the possibility to leapfrog manual clicks and return to an intuitive, hands-free human interaction between the doctor and patient.
Physician Feedback
"I am very impressed with the quality and accuracy of the note, and it keeps only what’s relevant. [Knowtex] generates a very thorough page, saves me from typing, and therefore provides more helpful information to support authorization and billing.” ~ Alberto Bessudo, M.D. - Medical Oncologist
"I love it. I don’t have the mental energy to rehash everything through a voice-text system after I’m done [seeing patients]. Using Knowtex is less energy draining, and less tiring. It’s saving me 3-4 hours when I’m seeing new consults and also helps with extended follow-ups [visits].” ~ Sukhjeet S. Batth, M.D., M.S., DABR. - Radiation Oncologist
"I am very impressed with the quality and accuracy of the note, and it keeps only what’s relevant. [Knowtex] generates a very thorough page, saves me from typing, and therefore provides more helpful information to support authorization and billing.” ~ Erin Blake, M.D. - Gynecologic Oncologist
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