Retrospective pre-post study reveals ambient AI reduces documentation time and burnout among ambulatory clinicians, suggesting effective alleviation of administrative burden.
Key Points
To evaluate the impact of an ambient AI documentation tool (DAX Copilot) on electronic health record efficiency, note composition practices, and clinician well-being across a large multi-state health system.
Retrospective index-date-aligned pre-post analysis of objective Epic Signal EHR activity metrics across 8 months pre- and post-activation.
Included 210 ambulatory physicians and advanced practice providers who generated ≥25% of note content via ambient AI and had 16 months of EHR data.
Administered a follow-up survey 45 days post-activation (n=233; 26.4% response rate) assessing burnout, job satisfaction, and work-life balance.
Active note time decreased significantly from 5.54 to 4.09 minutes per appointment (a 26.2% reduction; p<0.001).
Manual documentation behaviors declined markedly despite a 28.8% increase in note length, including reductions in typing (-51.7%), copy/paste (-42.7%), and conventional voice recognition (-67.8%).
Survey respondents reported reduced burnout, improved work-life balance, increased job satisfaction, and a strong preference to continue using ambient AI.