A new global survey of more than 1,800 clinicians across 25 countries – including 772 from Australia, has found they are adopting AI to tackle the documentation crisis faster than healthcare systems can keep pace.
AI care partner Heidi today released Pressure Points, a report examining how the clinical workforce is using AI and where the governance gaps are, with Heidi head of legal and regulatory affairs Yass Omar noting the report highlighted “how clinicians are having to form their own governance instincts while they wait for regulation to catch up.”
“Healthcare organisations have the opportunity to give clinicians the confidence to practice safely using AI and provide health networks with the defensibility they require, by establishing best-in-class clinical safety frameworks. This is what’s currently missing.”
KEY FINDINGS
Documentation remained the single heaviest administrative task in clinical practice – nowhere more so than in Australia.
92 per cent of Australian clinicians named it their top burden, consistent across every specialty and career stage.
Meanwhile, 86 per cent of clinicians now use AI daily or several times a week and usage is highest among the most experienced practitioners.
More than half (57 per cent) now call AI a consistent part of how they work and 85 per cent are doing so without guidance from their employer, a formal policy or a recommended tool.
Globally, 62 per cent of clinicians with 21 or more years in practice used it daily, compared with 51 per cent of those with five years or less and veteran clinicians are those most often recommending it to colleagues.
The clinicians who had lost the most time to documentation over their careers were the first to adopt.
TRUST GAPS
In the report, 69 per cent of clinicians cited hallucinations and accuracy risk as their top concern with using AI tools in their practice, ahead of patient privacy (58 per cent), over reliance (46 per cent) and erosion of clinical judgement (41 per cent).
More than half (56 per cent) felt confident that AI tools are safe and adequately regulated.
Heidi Global Chief Medical Officer Dr Simon Kos noted, “the debate about whether clinicians will adopt AI is over. They already have.”
“When something works, clinicians use it, and they’re not waiting for policies to catch up. They found relief on their own terms, long before anyone handed it to them, and the hours they’re recovering are a lot more than abstract measures on a spreadsheet,” Dr Kos said.
“When a clinician finishes their last consultation of the day and their charting is already done, you have given them their evening back. Multiplied across a career, that is what lets clinicians stay in medicine longer instead of burning out.”
The survey also found patients also appeared more comfortable with their clinicians using AI, with 77 per cent of clinicians saying their patients are open to it being used in their care.
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