#9 - Ambient Documentation Tech: Reducing Burnout or Creating New Problems?

Code & Cure

AI is writing medical notes, but can doctors trust what it creates?

Burnout is quietly eroding the medical workforce—and documentation overload is a major culprit. Physicians now spend nearly half their workday writing notes instead of treating patients, pushing many to the brink of exhaustion. Could artificial intelligence offer a lifeline?

In this episode, we explore ambient documentation technology (ADT)—AI tools that automatically generate clinical notes by listening to patient-doctor conversations. On paper, the promise is bold: let physicians focus on care, not charting. But reality is more complicated.

Laura shares her firsthand experience with late-night charting and the emotional toll of juggling empathy and efficiency. We unpack the deeper roots of burnout—beyond paperwork—including overwhelming patient loads, chronic understaffing, and a culture that often punishes vulnerability.

AI-generated notes surface an intriguing paradox: human communication is effortless for doctors, but incredibly complex for machines. What a physician instantly grasps from a patient’s gesture or tone can easily confuse an AI system. The result? Notes that sometimes omit critical context, add irrelevant details, or introduce factual errors.

Early research reveals mixed outcomes—some clinicians spend extra hours editing AI notes, defeating the intended time savings. Yet there’s potential. With advances in multimodal input and smarter evaluation tools, ADT could still become a powerful support tool—not to replace doctors, but to restore their time.

Tune in to discover why turning conversation into clinical documentation is one of AI’s most challenging—and potentially transformative—tasks in modern healthcare.

References:

Evaluation of an Ambient Artificial Intelligence Documentation Platform for Clinicians
Stults CD, McDonald KM, Niehaus KE, et al.
JAMA Network Open, 2025

Ambient Artificial Intelligence Scribes to Alleviate the Burden of Clinical Documentation
Tierney AA, Gayre G, Hoberman B, et al.
NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery, 2024

Credits:

Theme music: Nowhere Land, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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1. #9 - Ambient Documentation Tech: Reducing Burnout or Creating New Problems? (00:00:00)

2. The Documentation Burden Reality (00:00:01)

3. Understanding Doctor Burnout Causes (00:01:22)

4. Current Documentation Methods (00:03:32)

5. Introduction to Ambient Documentation Tech (00:04:57)

6. Accuracy Challenges in AI Documentation (00:08:33)

7. Contextual Information Missing from Notes (00:16:05)

8. The Future of Medical Documentation (00:22:02)