Hope everyone had a great week! Let’s dive into this week’s newsletter.

Top Insights of the Week

Clinicians in the spotlight

UW Health nurses test how a large language model (LLM) can help draft responses to patient questions sent through the health system's patient portal.

UW Health said that it aims to shape how AI can benefit patients, nursing and the healthcare industry as a whole and elevate its academic nursing programs.

AI is Optimizing Clinical Workforces and Improving Flexibility

With its ability to analyze vast amounts of data and derive actionable insights, AI presents a transformative opportunity to revolutionize nurse staffing practices.

The new generation of nurses wants and expects flexibility; they recognize it as a key factor among employees, so organizations must prioritize flexibility to tap into this new talent pool effectively.

AI-driven scheduling solutions offer a pathway to meet evolving preferences, enabling nurses and other healthcare staff to align their work hours more closely with their commitments and lifestyles. These platforms leverage sophisticated algorithms to analyze factors including patient census, acuity levels, and staff availability to generate optimized schedules.

Physician-owned models benefits for patients and providers

Contrasting sharply with private equity, physician-owned models present a sustainable alternative that ensures financial viability without sacrificing the quality of care. These models benefit patients and providers by directing funds into care models rather than siphoning them to investors. Physician-owned and led practices emphasize long-term patient outcomes over short-term financial gains and foster a culture where clinicians have a direct stake in the success of their practice.

Why CMS should define standardized and mandatory Measures Of Workplace Quality and Workforce Well-Being

CMS-mandated workforce quality metrics should focus on clinician well-being and organizational workplace outcomes. Measures such as clinician burnout rates based on the Maslach Burnout Inventory, job satisfaction metrics, quality indicators of workplace violence, and facility turnover rates should be collected and tracked along with other structure (for example, staffing levels and skill-mix) and process (for example, presence of workplace quality improvement initiatives) measures. Validated tools exist for collecting these measures that can be easily adapted to large-scale quality measurement programs.

Abridge’s generative AI solution for clinical documentation reduces physician burnout by 40 percent

CHRISTUS Health signed an enterprise-wide agreement to implement Abridge, a platform that improves clinical documentation efficiencies, enabling clinicians to focus more on their patients.

After using it for a few months, CHRISTUS clinicians have already experienced a significant reduction in burnout and now give more undivided attention to patients.

Survey results revealed significant time savings, reduced burnout, and increased uninterrupted time with patients.

Clinicians now spend an average of 60% less time on documentation outside of work hours, achieving a better work-life balance.

Inspirational Pill

ASPIRE and STORIES: A New International Initiative for Faculty Collaboration and Patient Advocacy in Immune-Related Adverse Events

The Immune-Related Adverse Events (irAE) Consortium has launched ASPIRE and STORIES with the aim of uniting clinicians, researchers, and patients to advance clinical care and advocacy.

As a discipline, immune-related adverse events management exemplifies the growing logistical challenge of the essential but overloaded multidisciplinary model in oncology, in both outpatient and inpatient settings. There is an urgent need to empower clinicians, patients, and caregivers to create care models that are effective across various care settings in our health-care system.

A two-day datathon at Brown University assigned mixed teams the mission of spotting the biases hiding in the health data and creating more equitable prediction models

By creating collaborations among high school students, data scientists and clinicians, the datathon was intended to demonstrate that society needs people from diverse backgrounds to address bias in AI predictions, contribute to a more equitable health care system and mitigate future problems.

Startups, therapies and devices

New startup Stitch PEO supports independent medical practices with HR solutions tailored to their needs

Stitch PEO that has raised $8.75 million in seed funding addresses with its platform the HR, payroll and benefits management needs of small and medium-sized healthcare practices, automating routine tasks and reducing administrative burden, continuously monitors healthcare regulations and provides system updates to ensure compliance.

Eko Health raises $41M to expand AI stethoscope business worldwide

Following an FDA clearance in April that unlocked its artificial intelligence program for capturing cases of low cardiac ejection fraction, Eko Health turns stethoscope into a connected medical device that can identify the subtle patterns of heart and lung disease.

Surveys

Seventy-five percent of 200 global health system executives say their organizations place a high priority on digital and analytics transformation but lack sufficient resources or planning in this area.

Delivering digital value for health systems requires investment and new ways of working by building partnerships, moving beyond off-the-shelf solutions, using the cloud for modernization, operating differently and cautiously embracing Gen AI.

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