โก Quick Summary
This scoping review evaluates the current state of ambient clinical documentation (ACD) technology, highlighting its potential to alleviate clinician burnout by reducing documentation burdens. The study proposes the Ambient Clinical Documentation Quality Instrument (ACDQI) as a standardized framework for assessing ACD systems.
๐ Key Details
- ๐ Studies Reviewed: 11 primary studies on ACD technology
- ๐งฉ Evaluation Themes: Model performance, documentation efficiency, clinician experience, patient experience
- โ๏ธ Proposed Framework: Ambient Clinical Documentation Quality Instrument (ACDQI)
- ๐ Key Findings: Significant heterogeneity in evaluation metrics across studies
๐ Key Takeaways
- ๐ ACD technology aims to reduce the administrative burden on clinicians.
- ๐ก Four main themes were identified for evaluating ACD: model performance, documentation efficiency, clinician experience, and patient experience.
- ๐ Heterogeneity in evaluation metrics indicates a need for standardization.
- ๐ ๏ธ ACDQI is proposed as a comprehensive set of metrics for ACD evaluation.
- โณ Time savings from ACD could be redirected to direct patient care.
- ๐ค Collaborative efforts are essential for refining the ACDQI before its validation and implementation.
- ๐ Future research is needed to explore the full potential of ACD technology in clinical settings.
๐ Background
Clinical documentation is a crucial aspect of healthcare, yet it often leads to a significant administrative burden for clinicians, contributing to rising rates of burnout. The emergence of ambient clinical documentation (ACD) technology presents a promising solution to this challenge, aiming to streamline the documentation process and enhance clinician well-being.
๐๏ธ Study
This review conducted a comprehensive search of the Medline and Embase databases to identify primary studies that report on ACD technology. ACD is defined as systems that process clinician-patient conversationsโeither simulated or real-worldโto generate structured clinical notes. The review aimed to analyze the outcome measures used in these studies and propose a standardized framework for evaluation.
๐ Results
The review included 11 studies, revealing four main themes for evaluating ACD technology: model performance, documentation efficiency, clinician experience, and patient experience. However, the studies exhibited significant heterogeneity in the evaluation metrics employed, underscoring the need for a unified approach. The proposed ACDQI aims to address this gap by providing a standardized set of evaluation metrics.
๐ Impact and Implications
The findings of this review suggest that ACD technology has the potential to significantly reduce the documentation burden faced by clinicians, allowing them to focus more on patient care. By implementing standardized evaluation metrics like the ACDQI, healthcare organizations can better assess the effectiveness of ACD systems, ultimately improving clinician satisfaction and patient outcomes. The implications of this technology could lead to a more efficient and less stressful healthcare environment.
๐ฎ Conclusion
This scoping review highlights the transformative potential of ambient clinical documentation technology in alleviating clinician burnout and enhancing patient care. The proposed ACDQI serves as a crucial step towards standardizing the evaluation of ACD systems, paving the way for future research and implementation. As we move forward, collaborative efforts will be essential to refine these metrics and validate their effectiveness in clinical practice.
๐ฌ Your comments
What are your thoughts on the potential of ACD technology to improve clinical documentation? We invite you to share your insights and engage in a discussion! ๐ฌ Leave your comments below or connect with us on social media:
Current evidence and future directions of metrics used to evaluate ambient clinical documentation: A scoping review.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Although clinical documentation serves a vital role in healthcare, this task generates a significant administrative burden and has been linked to rising rates of clinician burnout. Ambient clinical documentation (ACD) provides a potential solution to this issue. With the ongoing developments in this field, benchmarking and evaluation of ACD as the technology evolves is necessary, and to facilitate this a standardised set of evaluation criteria is needed. This review aims to evaluate the available literature on the use of ACD technology, identify and analyse the outcome measures used to evaluate ACD technology, and propose a framework for evaluating ACD.
METHODS: A comprehensive search of Medline and Embase databases was conducted to identify primary studies reporting on the use of ACD technology, defined as systems that process simulated or real-world clinician-patient conversations to generate structured clinical notes.
RESULTS: 11 studies were included in the final review. Four main themes to evaluate ACD technology were identified, including model performance, documentation efficiency, clinician experience, and patient experience. However, there was significant heterogeneity of the evaluation metrics used among the included studies. Following this, the review proposes the Ambient Clinical Documentation Quality Instrument (ACDQI) as a set of evaluation metrics to assess the performance of ACD systems.
CONCLUSION: ACD technology has the potential to significantly reduce documentation burden for clinicians, as well as redirect saved time to direct patient care. Further collaborative work is needed to determine appropriate amendments to the proposed ACDQI scoring system prior to validation and implementation in future ACD studies.
Author: [‘Suhail D’, ‘Wong ZY’, ‘Ubhi J’, ‘Kungwengwe G’, ‘Faderani R’, ‘Mosahebi A’]
Journal: Int J Med Inform
Citation: Suhail D, et al. Current evidence and future directions of metrics used to evaluate ambient clinical documentation: A scoping review. Current evidence and future directions of metrics used to evaluate ambient clinical documentation: A scoping review. 2025; 205:106113. doi: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2025.106113