A perspectives article in JAMA Internal Medicine notes that primary care providers (PCPs) spend a large part of their time each day clicking in their medical record systems. Artificial intelligence (AI) is gradually working its way into everyday processes—such as algorithms that can suggest coding choices or predict a patient’s risk for a certain health condition—ideally to help clinicians gain some efficiencies. The author believes that the widespread availability of generative AI suggests that AI-powered tools “will soon affect the practice of primary care on a daily, if not an hourly, basis.”
AI seems inevitable: And that goes for urgent care as well. If the idea is for AI to create efficiencies, however, any tool that’s leveraged in the clinical setting and used by clinicians must appreciate the unique nuances of urgent care. For example, one of the best uses in the urgent care setting for AI might be a tool that generates patient summaries for continuity of care within the larger healthcare ecosystem.