






stuff i/we have published
Rob Turer presenting the major Open Results paper at #AMIA #CIC2023. 95% of patients who received results PREFER to see it immediately even if not normal! precounseling MIGHT help! Thanks Dr. Turer for laying a data foundation for patient information transparency.
Speech recognition has been used in medical practice for years. Some physicians/APP’s use this in the exam room. What do patients think of this? We studied this, and published on this topic, come along for the ride …
Dr. Jeffrey Sippel, pulmologist at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Anschutz Medical Campus
https://humanfactors.jmir.org/2023/1/e42739
At long last! Dr. Jeffrey Sippel, Dr. Tim Podhajsky and I have been thinking about this for a few years. Speech recognition engines have been improving steadily for years now, and I (CT) have been using it for over almost 2 decades.
Leaving aside the improvements with DAX express (look it up; will be interesting very soon, ambient listening of a 2 person medical interview with AI-generated progress notes), what could Speech Recognition in the exam room do with the physician-patient relationship?
Here is both encouragement for my colleagues and admiration for those who have figured out how to get external funding for research or projects.
We do many studies like one this WITH NO FUNDING. Just doing our usual job, having a good idea and then applying a generous amount of elbow grease, weekend and evening hours spent thinking, designing, writing, submitting an “exempt IRB application” for a Quality Improvement Project. Then, once granted, figuring out how to beg, borrow, steal the tools, experts and resources needed to do the work, set up the right patient or physician/APP population, do a paper survey, collate, meet regularly to think and write up the results, then submit for publication.
The secret to success is: choosing simple questions to ask, projects that don’t require new expensive equipment, and then REGULAR WEEKLY OR MONTHLY MEETINGS to hold each other accountable to make slow steady progress on your collaboration. This is the roadmap for our success in this project (and many others).
I want to thank Holly Hockemeier for her generosity in donating several dozen Dragon Speech Microphones to our project to get it off the ground (Hi, Holly! Thanks to you and the Nuance team!).
Short answer: in the report above with 65 patients across 3 medical offices, patients highly preferred having a physician use speech recognition (microphone in the exam room) to generate “assessment and plan” recommendations for the patient, that they would take home with them.
This is the first report of using Speech Recognition in this way in the exam room. Do you use Speech Recognition in your practice? Then, WITHOUT the FANCY DAX (Dragon Ambient eXperience) “tools of the future”, you can do what we did TODAY.
Over the years, I tried quite a few techniques with speech recognition. First, I tried using speech recognition throughout an entire patient visit. This is how the intro conversation went:
Me: “Hi Sarah, good to see you again. Since you’re a technology nerd like me, while we are talking today I’m going to try using my speech microphone during the visit. If this works, I can print you a copy of my note that I write about you today. Would that be okay?”
Sarah: “Sure! Sounds interesting”
Sarah would tell me her medical symptoms over the past few months since our last visit. This time, I would then summarize her symptoms while looking at the computer screen. I ran into trouble right away:
And then Dragon would type on the screen “Mrs. Jones states her sister has diabetes no not my sister my cousin.”
Conclusion: not great for HPI.
What would happen as I tried to do the physical exam with speech recognition in the exam room? I moved the patient to the exam table, do my exam. Not having a fancy bluetooth microphone, I could not speak as I was doing my exam. Then I’d have to return to the computer to document my findings. Not terrible, but not great, and took more time. Also, speech tools were generally slower than using a Macro to select mostly normal findings in the EHR.
Conclusion: not great for physical exam.
Well, then, is Speech Recognition good for ANYTHING in the exam room? It turns out, YES. By the time we get to A/P, I’m usually doing a monologue for the majority of this time, for example “Here’s what I heard, here’s what I’m thinking, here’s what I propose we do, what do you think?”
With some revision over the years, here’s what I say now (with ALL CAPS indicating the Speech Recognition COMMANDS):
Me: “Mrs. Jones, I’m going to talk to the computer now, while I speak to you about my thoughts. It is going to sound a little funny, but follow with me and and I’m going to ask if it makes sense to you. If you agree, I’ll print a copy for you to take home.”
Mrs. Jones: “Okay.”
Me:
“Assessment and Recommendations – COLON – NEW LINE
NUMBER ONE PERIOD High blood pressure PERIOD Your blood pressure looks great today PERIOD It is 122/70 today and the losartan is not causing any side effects PERIOD Please continue taking one every day and check your blood pressure reading once a week and write it down for us to review in 3 months PERIOD”
“MICROPHONE OFF” (to patient) Does that make sense? Any questions?
Mrs. Jones: “And losartan doesn’t cause cough, like the lisinopril before, so that’s good, right?”
Me:
“MICROPHONE ON I’m glad that the losartan is not causing cough PERIOD This is why we switched to this medicine, which seems to be working well PERIOD”
This way, I give the advice ONCE.
The computer hears and transcribes immediately.
I maintain eye contact with the patient while speaking.
The patient can correct me as we go.
The patient is hearing reflective listening and hearing the plan out loud.
I can print and hand the patient the summary immediately.
The patient is astounded at the on-screen typing he/she can watch live.
Often, patients will bring their last summary and indicate what they have accomplished since last visit. Win-win.
In fact, now I have adjusted to include a brief HPI and exam right into the A/P, making tiny SOAP notes for each separate problem like this:
“MICROPHONE ON Assessment and Recommendations COLON NEW LINE NUMBER ONE High blood pressure PERIOD Patient states she started on losartan 1 month ago and has had no side effects PERIOD Her potassium and creatinine test was normal yesterday and her blood pressure today is 122/70 PERIOD NEW LINE ALL CAPS Plan COLON NEW LINE Please continue losartan PERIOD I am glad it has not caused cough and that the blood pressure looks great PERIOD Keep checking your BP at home once a week and lets see you again in 3 months PERIOD Let me know via the patient portal if you have any questions or concerns. MICROPHONE OFF.
CMIO’s take? Come join us! Try Speech Recognition in the Exam Room. There is NO DOWN SIDE. Only time savings for physicians/APP’s, better reflective listening for patients and more timely documentation.
SIDE NOTE ABOUT GOOGLE BARD —
“summarize this article in less than 280 characters”
GOOGLE BARD’S RESPONSE:
Patients have a very positive perception of speech recognition use in the exam room. A survey of 65 patients found that 86% agreed or strongly agreed that their provider addressed their concerns better when using speech recognition, and 73% agreed or strongly agreed that they understood their provider's advice better. Patients were also more likely to recommend a provider who used speech recognition. This study suggests that speech recognition can be a valuable tool for improving patient care. It can help clinicians to take better notes, which can lead to more accurate diagnoses and treatment plans. Additionally, it can help patients to feel more involved in their care, as they can see the notes being taken and ask questions about them.
What do 8000 patients think about the immediate release of test results since the 21st Century Cures Act Final Rule on information blocking? 96% preferred receiving immediately released results online even if their health care practitioner had not yet reviewed the result. (and more!)
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2802672
This collaboration between UT Southwestern, Vanderbilt, Beth Israel Deaconness and UCHealth surveyed over 43,000 patients, with 8139 respondents (18% response rate).
Thanks to Drs. Steitz, Turer, MacDonald, Rosenbloom, DesRoches for close collaboration, and to all team members, including the excellent Chief Patient Information Officer, Liz Salmi, for perspectives, insights and enthusiasm. This was a fun project to be part of.
It is the largest analysis of patient portal users’ attitudes about seeing test results immediately. Some key findings:
CMIO’s take? Another push towards information transparency with patients. 96% of an 8000 patient survey indicate that they prefer having immediate access to test results, even if their physician/APP had not seen the result, and even if the result was abnormal. Some respondents did worry more with abnormal results, and there is an opportunity for us to improve our tools and workflow for those patients.
Excess venipunctures can be caused by Electronic Health Record-related factors. By doing a root cause analysis, we eliminated about 1000 unnecessary blood draws monthly. Cool informatics work by smart colleagues.
What uses did they find for these images? Does UCHealth recommend this practice? Did CT Lin get fired as a result of these actions? #hcldr #whyinformatics #hitsm #hotoffthepress
https://formative.jmir.org/2022/4/e29496
We surveyed patients who had access to view NOT ONLY their radiology reports BUT ALSO their radiology images (including plain film, CT, MRI, PET, etc) online via the EHR patient portal.
What did they think? Were they worried? Did they post the images online? Who did they share with? (hint, 4% shared on social media)
These questions, and more, are answered in the article. Click the link above, dear Reader, and press on.
why aren’t we measuring this more?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1553725020302464
Thank goodness for smart colleagues. Dr. Elizabeth Harry is first author on an important work that ties physician/provider task load to burnout. See link above.Â
Using the NASA task load index, and the Maslach burnout inventory, she was able to demonstrate a substantial correlation with an increased task load (mental, physical, and temporal demands, and perception of effort) and burnout.
Far from pointing the finger at EHR’s alone, task load generalizes across many industries, with electronic tools such as the EHR being a major negative or positive influence.
I can see a fruitful future line of investigation and collaboration with this measurement tool.
CMIO’s take? How are YOU measuring and tackling provider burnout?
My good friend Dr. Elizabeth Toll, pediatrician, professor of pediatrics and medicine at the Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University, has done it again.
Her piece in the Rhode Island Medical Journal.
Her timely, moving portrait of the immigrants of the Bhutanense-Nepali refugee community is emblematic of the struggles and triumphs of immigrants in the United States. As an immigrant myself, I can relate. As a physician, I can relate.
She writes, however, for all humans. She shows us connection, and community.
It is heartbreaking, on-the-ground insightful, and I derived great solace from her soulful writing.
CMIO’s take? Read this. Happy Holidays.
Full open-access paper here. https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/21385/accepted
What I love about working in an academic health center is the luxury of being surrounded by people smarter, and more hardworking than I am. Here are Drs. Portz and Lum analyzing our data on the capture of patient’s Advance Care Plans – ACPs (including the Medical Durable Power of Attorney MDPOA) and other documents online via our patient portal.
We believe we are among the first in the country to offer the ability for patients to complete this online and designate a medical decision-maker in the event of their incapacity. Furthermore, we now accept photos of documents (easy and convenient via our patient portal app integrated with a smartphone camera — hooray modern tools for modern medicine) into the patient chart, and can see signatures, names, contact information, and details of MDPOAs, Living Wills and other ACPs.
And, during the anxieties of the pandemic, we had a significant uptick in patients completing the MDPOA and uploading images.
CMIO’s take? Another publication for our smart colleagues — good. Better patient care — great.
https://academic.oup.com/jamia/article/doi/10.1093/jamia/ocaa171/5873873
Thanks to a great team of collaborative physician and nurse informaticists and our broader community of brilliant clinicians. We are happy to share our many uses of informatics in response to the Covid-19 crisis and hope that some of these findings are of use to other clinicians and health systems.
The article is open access, linked above. DON’T MISS the 11 supplementary online-only files with lots of details of “How we built this.”
CMIO’s take: these are the moments that make us proudest; being able to share the work of colleagues on the international stage in the service of improving patient’s lives, improving clinician lives, and in the advocacy for practical, clinical informatics.
https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/10.2217/pgs-2020-0007
Thanks to Christine Aquilante, lead author and main force of nature behind our early experience with Pharmacogenomics. Pharmacogenomics is the specifc branch of Genomics and Personalized Medicine that deals purely with “drug-gene pairs” or how a patients genetic variants might affect their ability to process and metabolize medication. The upshot is: some patients don’t respond well to some medications. There are now several dozen drug-gene pairs well described in the literature, where patients won’t respond well to certain medications because of their genomic variant. However up until now, it has been difficult to get any knowledge of such variants in front of the patient and prescriber at the most important time: when deciding on a new prescription.
UCHealth has a Biobank where we have obtained research lab samples from over 100,000 patients (drawing an extra lab tube in the course of routine clinical care) and have been testing samples for pharmacogenomic markers. In a few cases, we have found clinically relevant genetic variants that we are beginning to deliver back into the Electronic Health Record in the form of test results for clinician, in the form of test results and notification to the patient in the patient portal, and finally and most importantly, to the prescriber of the affected drug AT THE TIME OF PRESCRIBING for any affected patient.
This is groundbreaking, and hard work on so many levels:
CMIO’s take? We are happy to be among the few organizations setting up, and scaling up our efforts on Biobanking: conducting research AND benefiting patients in clinical care with PGx. Here we are expanding the boundaries of medical knowledge, and turning around to translate this into better decision making for our providers and patients.