Key result
AI-generated patient summaries cut weekly previsit chart preparation time by ~37% per clinician.
Why the study?
Multidisciplinary obesity and diabetes care involves extensive time on documentation and chart review across providers and data sources, motivating evaluation of whether an AI-generated structured patient summary could improve clinician efficiency and satisfaction.
Does a real-time, AI-generated structured patient summary improve clinician efficiency in a virtual obesity clinic?
Does a real-time, AI-generated structured patient summary improve clinician efficiency in a virtual obesity clinic?
An AI-generated patient summary tool significantly reduced previsit chart preparation time and yielded high clinician satisfaction in a virtual obesity clinic.
May streamline workflows in virtual obesity clinics; leaves open generalizability and outcome effects beyond this pre-post cohort.
Introduction and Objective: Multidisciplinary obesity and diabetes care requires coordination across providers and multiple data sources, often involving extensive time on documentation and chart review. We evaluated whether implementation of a real-time, AI-generated structured patient summary could improve clinician efficiency and satisfaction. Methods: In a large nationwide virtual obesity clinic, we conducted a pre-post evaluation of a newly launched clinician facing summary feature. Using an iterative development process with clinical stakeholder input, we deployed a large language model-based system that synthesized structured electronic health record data and unstructured visit notes into a standardized, workflow-integrated summary. RDs underwent a time-stamp assessment of minutes per patient spent on previsit chart preparation, pre and post implementation. The primary outcome was clinician efficiency, as measured by previsit chart preparation time spent. Secondary outcomes included provider satisfaction. Results: The AI generated structured patient summary displays relevant information from recent provider interactions, including outstanding action items, recent labs, medication changes, dietary recall and nutritional goals. Primary outcome: Preimplementation of the new summary tool, RDs spent an average of 125.5 mins/week on previsit charting. In post-intervention assessment, this was significantly reduced to 78.7 mins/week per clinician (p <0.05). Of surveyed RDs, 84% reported the intervention decreased perceived time spent on previsit charting. Qualitative outcomes: Clinicians reported ‘satisfied’ (32%) or ‘very satisfied’ (61%) with the new tool. Constructive feedback was used for iterative retraining of the AI model. Conclusion: Implementation of a real-time, AI generated patient summary was associated with documentation efficiency gains and had high acceptability by clinicians in a large virtual obesity practice.
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DRIVER et al. (2026) studied Obesity and diabetes. Real-time, AI-generated structured patient summary vs. Pre-implementation (standard charting) was evaluated on Clinician efficiency, as measured by previsit chart preparation time spent (minutes/week) (p=<0.05). Implementation of an AI-generated patient summary significantly reduced previsit chart preparation time from 125.5 to 78.7 minutes per week per clinician (p<0.05).
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