What You Should Know:
– Suki, a voice artificial intelligence (AI) technology company for healthcare, announced the release of a mini-documentary that features the real-life challenge of a family physician facing burnout and how a voice assistant helped alleviate the negative impact of administrative burden.
– “From Burnout to Balance” is an intimate view into Dr. Elizabeth Goff’s struggles with work-life balance and how the use of a voice assistant provided the margin needed to keep her in practice full-time.
From Burnout to Balance
“I love what I do, but all the extra stuff made it not worth it,” Goff said in a recent interview. “My kids aren’t getting the best of me. My patients aren’t getting the best of me. So, the option would have been going part-time.”
Based in Lynchburg, Va., Goff, a physician and parent of two very young children, considered dropping back to part-time hours because she was forced to choose between personalized interactions with her patients — which would require her to shelve her laptop during their visits — and time at home with her family. When she adopted Suki Assistant in 2021, her daily workflow improved substantially, allowing her to stay in practice full-time.
“For me, it’s about trying to find that balance, so I feel that joy and that I’m giving,” Goff said. “The dictation part [of Suki] is really nice, but there are other parts that help [my workflow go] smoothly. The Suki note pulls in the vitals, the medications, the past problems [from the EHR]. Those seconds and minutes add up. And very quickly in the visit the computer gets pushed aside and I get to talk to the patient, so I’m connecting with the patient during the visit. I’m not looking at the screen. Patients are getting better care.”
Why It Matters
Nationwide, 62.8% of all physicians experienced burnout in 2021. Good documentation promotes quality care, but the technology used for documentation is often ancient and slow. As a result, physicians spend half of their time doing paperwork and only 25% treating patients. As explored in the video, Dr. Goff has dedicated her life to medicine and looks forward to guiding the healthcare of people “through both the happy and sad parts of their lives,” just like her parents, also both doctors. But at one point, she almost quit the family business completely because of seemingly insurmountable work-life balance issues. An AAFP study shows a 72% reduction in documentation time per note with Suki’s AI-powered voice assistant.
