How WakeMed Health Boosted Revenue by $10M Through Innovative AI Documentation and Clinical Insights

WakeMed Health & Hospitals, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, faced a tough problem with its electronic health record (EHR) system. This system is crucial for both generating revenue and maintaining quality scores for patient care. But improving documentation meant asking doctors to spend even more time on the EHR—a system that many already found frustrating.

Research indicates that for every hour doctors spend with patients, they often need an additional two hours to enter data electronically. This workload contributes to burnout, making doctors 2.8 times more likely to feel exhausted or overwhelmed. As Dr. David Kirk, WakeMed’s chief clinical integration officer, pointed out, many medical professionals feel they only trained to care for patients, not to fill out charts. This tension was evident at WakeMed: the more they pushed for better documentation, the heavier the burden felt.

The hospital needed a solution. To help ease the documentation load, WakeMed turned to AI technology. They adopted a three-part strategy, focusing on data, people, and technology. The health system discovered that most documentation issues stemmed from patients seen by their hospitalist team. To tackle this, they implemented an AI-powered clinical insights platform from the vendor Regard.

Dr. Kirk highlighted the importance of properly training physicians on this new technology. The AI application analyzes a patient’s entire EHR and suggests diagnoses along with supporting evidence, significantly reducing the time doctors spend gathering data.

This integration means that when a physician diagnoses a condition like sepsis, the AI pulls in additional information to back up that diagnosis. This ensures accurate documentation, which is crucial for patient care, quality scores, and revenue collection. So far, the AI has been mainly used in hospitalist settings, with plans to roll it out to other areas soon.

Early results have been promising. The AI application reportedly helped recover $9.3 million in claims that could have been denied while generating $871,000 in new revenue linked to correctly documenting more complex cases. Additionally, there has been a noticeable 3% improvement in the severity of illness documentation and a 3.6% rise in relevant capture rates, enhancing the hospital’s quality ratings.

However, introducing AI technology has its challenges. Dr. Kirk mentioned that the biggest hurdle isn’t technological—it’s cultural. Many doctors still see the EHR as a way to tell a patient’s story rather than as a tool for coding and revenue purposes. Educating clinicians on the importance of documentation for both revenue and quality metrics can help overcome this resistance.

Effective adoption of AI technology involves early buy-in from physicians and showing how it enhances patient care. It’s not just about the hospital’s bottom line; accurate documentation ensures continuity of care and helps future providers understand a patient’s history.

In summary, with the rise of AI in healthcare, organizations like WakeMed are finding innovative solutions to address both documentation challenges and clinician burnout. This shift not only helps with revenue but also brings better care for patients.

For further reading on the impacts of AI in healthcare, check out this report from the American Medical Association.

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