Tech Giant Amazon Launches AI-Powered Tools to “Reimagine Primary Care”

Amazon’s care service Amazon One Medical has introduced new AI technologies to reduce the administrative burden on healthcare professionals, cutting 40% off the time they spend on them.

The Time Sink of Administrative Duties in Today’s Healthcare

Administrative tasks are one of the most time-draining aspects of current medical practice. According to studies, administrative duties consume a significant amount of doctors’ time. Research revealed that primary care physicians (PCPs) invested around 3.1 hours daily interacting with patients, while another 3.2 hours were devoted to administrative duties. The research revealed that PCPs dedicated only 40% of their time to direct patient interactions, while 60% was spent on other non-patient-related duties.

This substantial administrative burden could negatively impact physicians’ levels of burnout. According to data from the American Medical Association, 48.2% of physicians in the U.S. reported experiencing burnout in 2023. Additionally, research has found that emotional exhaustion may lead doctors to experience anxiety and depression, which may hinder their ability to deliver high-quality care.

Recently, major technology companies, including Microsoft and Google, have focused on developing technologies to enhance medicine and improve patient care. Now, Amazon has joined this effort, aiming to reduce physician burnout by easing administrative burdens and allowing doctors to dedicate more time to patient care.

Amazon’s Proposed Solutions

Amazon and Amazon One Medical are collaborating to design impactful AI solutions that streamline workflows and enhance patient experiences.

These are some of their key proposed solutions:

• Easy Note-Taking and Reviewing: Amazon uses AWS HealthScribe to obtain details from conversations with patients in real-time, which physicians can then review and modify as needed. This technology would free them from the task of note-taking during visits and reduce the time spent on administrative tasks after appointments.

As a physician, building trusting relationships with my patients has always been the most rewarding part of my work. 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.”

Andrew Diamond MD, chief medical officer, Amazon One Medical.

• Streamlined Medical Records: With the help of AI, Amazon One Medical can scan and summarize extensive clinical histories derived from outside the organization. This capability would enable doctors to create insightful care plans without spending hours examining medical records.
• Patient Messaging Solutions: An AI-powered messaging tool will assist doctors in effortlessly drafting patient messages, allowing them to edit before sending, enabling faster and more effective patient interactions.
• Improved Team Cooperation: Amazon One Medical will rely on AI to evaluate patient needs and ensure that duties are directed to the most appropriate individuals. This approach is expected to enhance team cooperation, ultimately improving the delivery of patient care.

Amazon Tech’s Potential to Reimagine Patient Care

According to Amazon One Medical, the objective of the implementation of new AI technology in medical settings is “to reduce administrative tasks by 40%, compared to industry standards, to give doctors more time with their patients”.

This means that these technologies could alleviate the workload on current physician staff, allowing them to focus less on paperwork, invest that time in consultations and potentially strengthen doctor-patient relationships. This would be achieved by adhering to strict standards to safeguard protected health information and ensure patient privacy.

“Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize health care delivery, and we’re just at the beginning stages. Our vision is to harness AI to empower primary care providers and enable them to deliver exceptional, human-centered 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.”

Prakash Bulusu, chief technology officer, Amazon Health Services.

Is AI Up to the Task?

Recently, AI has shown significant potential to advance various areas of healthcare, including early breast cancer detection, fetal health prediction and personalized antibiotic treatment.

However, using AI in medical procedures comes with notable risks. Since AI is still an emerging technology, there is a lack of clear regulations regarding the reliable and ethical use of these tools to enhance medicine, especially around device reliability, biases and patient privacy breaches.

Therefore, for AI to fully and reliably integrate into contemporary healthcare, it will be crucial to regulate the medical use of these technologies and address concerns about inaccuracies. By doing so, AI’s potential could be harnessed, ultimately becoming a powerful tool to improve modern medicine while safeguarding patient interests.