Amazon One Medical Leverages AI to Reduce Administrative Burden and Improve Patient Care

Amazon One Medical has implemented AI tools to improve the efficiency and quality of primary care. These AI tools, powered by AWS generative AI services, help doctors save time by automating tasks such as note-taking, summarizing medical records, responding to patient messages, and routing tasks to the appropriate team members. The goal is to reduce administrative burden for doctors, enabling them to spend more time building relationships with patients and providing personalized care. Amazon One Medical emphasizes its commitment to patient privacy and believes these AI advancements will revolutionize healthcare delivery.

How does Amazon One Medical's use of AI improve patient care?

Amazon One Medical uses AI to improve patient care by reducing administrative tasks for doctors, allowing them to spend more time with their patients. Studies show that family physicians spend over 17 hours per week on administrative tasks, such as reviewing records and taking notes. This time commitment takes away from patient care and can lead to provider burnout. Amazon One Medical aims to reduce administrative tasks by 40% by using AI.

Here are some ways that Amazon One Medical is using AI technology to achieve this goal:

Visit notes at conversational speed: Amazon uses AWS HealthScribe to capture patient visit information in real-time. This process allows providers to be more present and attentive with their patients during visits, as they are not required to take notes. The provider can then review the notes generated by AI and make updates, as needed, before submitting them.

Medical history summaries: AI can read, label, and summarize lengthy medical records, including those from outside of Amazon One Medical. This helps providers quickly get up to speed on a patient's medical history, enabling them to create personalized care plans.

Responsive patient communication: AI-powered messaging tools allow care teams to quickly respond to patient messages. The care team can review and customize the AI-generated responses before sending them to patients. Faster response times encourage patient engagement and better communication with their care team.

Seamless care team collaboration: AI is used to assess patient needs and care team skills, allowing for more efficient routing of tasks and workflows. This process enables better communication and coordination among the care team, fostering a team-based approach to care.

Prakash Bulusu, the chief technology officer of Amazon Health Services, believes that generative AI can revolutionize healthcare delivery. Amazon One Medical's vision is to use AI to empower primary care providers and allow them to deliver human-cantered care. They believe that AI can help review health records, identify potential care gaps, route messages, and automate non-clinical workflows, allowing providers more time to connect with their patients and deliver exceptional care.

“Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize health care delivery, and we’re just at the beginning stages,” said Prakash Bulusu, chief technology officer, Amazon Health Services. “Our vision is to harness AI to empower primary care providers and enable them to deliver exceptional, human-cantered care by easing the burden of time-consuming administrative tasks. By intelligently applying AI to review health records, identify potential care gaps, route incoming messages, and help automate non-clinical workflows, primary care providers can focus on what matters most—fostering meaningful patient connections and delivering the best possible care.”

The company emphasizes that patient privacy is of the utmost importance. Amazon One Medical upholds the highest standards for safeguarding protected health information in the design and operation of its products and services. They are committed to alleviating provider burdens, creating stronger patient-provider relationships, and providing an improved healthcare experience for everyone.

“As a physician, building trusting relationships with my patients has always been the most rewarding part of my work,” said Andrew Diamond, MD, chief medical officer, Amazon One Medical. “With the support of our AI tools, we’ve implemented into our custom electronic health record, I can sit down with a patient, make eye contact, and have an uninterrupted conversation—free from typing notes or reviewing lengthy records. By reducing these distractions, Amazon One Medical clinicians can focus on why many of us became doctors in the first place—to develop caring and personal relationships with our patients to help them get and stay healthy.”

What are some of the specific ways Amazon One Medical's AI tools help save doctor’s time?

Amazon One Medical leverages AI technology to develop tools that streamline various tasks for doctors, allowing them to dedicate more time to patient care. The sources outline several specific ways these tools help save doctor’s time:

Automating Note-Taking: AI-powered tools like AWS HealthScribe capture patient visit information in real time, eliminating the need for manual note-taking. This enables doctors to actively engage with patients during consultations without being distracted by documentation. Doctors can review the AI-generated notes later, make necessary adjustments, and then approve them, saving significant time on post-visit documentation.

Summarizing Medical Records: The AI technology can analyse and summarize lengthy medical records received from sources outside of Amazon One Medical, highlighting important details such as previous screenings, test results, and medication history. This feature saves doctors time by providing them with a concise overview of a patient's health history, enabling them to quickly understand the patient's medical journey and develop personalized care plans.

Streamlining Communication: AI is used to facilitate prompt responses to patient messages. The AI messaging tool generates detailed responses that care teams can customize and send to patients. By automating this process, the AI tool helps to expedite communication with patients, encouraging engagement and dialogue between patients and their care team.

Optimizing Task Allocation: Amazon One Medical utilizes AI to assess patient needs and match them with the appropriate care team member's skills, ensuring that tasks and workflows are routed to the most suitable individual, such as an administrator, doctor, care coordinator, or pharmacist.3 This intelligent task allocation system enhances communication and coordination within the care team, promoting a collaborative approach to patient care.

Summary

Amazon One Medical prioritizes patient privacy in the design and operation of its products and services, upholding the highest standards for protecting health information.1 The company uses its own electronic health record (EHR) system called 1Life, which allows its technology teams to continuously test and refine the AI tools used by providers.