Barts Health NHS Trust is continuing to roll out ambient voice technology to capture clinic conversations and generate patient letters automatically, as part of a national trial. Over 2,000 clinicians now have access to Oracle’s Clinical AI Agent tool across the trust, it states, with 1,350 having used it to date, and 700 using it during the month of September.
An initial trial with 250 users at the trust saw clinicians using an app on their mobile phone to record consultations, with the AVT transcribing and summarising information and generating clinical notes to be turned into letters for patients and their GPs “in real time”.
At that time, Barts Health highlighted that more than two-thirds of clinicians taking part in the pilot believed the quality of their consultations had improved, and that half saved “at least five minutes per appointment”.
Feedback from users is being fed back to Oracle to allow further development of the solution, the trust shares, with adaptations being made to suit the requirements of different specialties, and plans to develop a plain dictation function for complex cases later in the year. A desktop version of the app was also developed during the testing programme, and funded by NHS London.
While uptake continues to increase, Barts Health notes that some clinicians have “asked for more time to transition to the new way of working”. Eight percent of letters continue to be generated using the trust’s former G2 speech system, and a handful of licences will be retained for selected users until the end of the financial year.
Deputy chief medical officer Neil Macdonald said: “We listened to colleagues to ensure a smooth transition to this modern approach to clinical documentation. The forthcoming plain dictation feature means CAA will offer a like-for-like replacement for G2, and the limited license extension means we can clear the backlog of letters within it. There are also resources available to support the switch-over, including training materials and user guides.”
Wider trend: AVT
Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust has begun its rollout of Lyrebird Health AVT, initially in the emergency department, gastroenterology, and gynaecology outpatients. The trust has been working in partnership with other South West London trusts and the SWL Acute Provider Collaborative to introduce AVT, the board noted earlier this year. A second phase of the rollout is also planned, to include more outpatient specialties and community services, followed by other clinical areas, Kingston and Richmond shares. Deployment is being coordinated with partner organisations across the region to promote consistency in approach.
The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust and Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust have announced Heidi as their preferred supplier for ambient voice technology following a “successful pilot of the solution in a number of departments”. The eight month pilot introduced the technology across the Walsall Healthcare emergency department, medical same day emergency care, dermatology, ENT and audiology, as well as obstetrics and gynaecology. Here, clinicians used Heidi’s solution to generate structured clinical notes from patient consultations, reviewing and approving prior to their addition to the patient record.
The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) has launched an investigation into the use of AVT in hospitals, following engagement with stakeholders including representatives from national bodies that highlighted potential safety issues. The investigation looks to explore the ways in which the use of AVT has contributed, or may contribute to, patient harm, along with the wider patient safety risks of its use, and how accountability for AVT safety is understood on a local and national level. According to HSSIB, it will use a specific analysis framework developed for generic AI systems to make its assessment.
