Willis Knighton Health Uses Ambient AI from Commure to Reduce Physician Burden

Before standardizing on MEDITECH for their EHR, the Louisiana provider Willis Knighton Health had 140 different instances of EHRs. Senior VP and CIO Mark Galea said it was critical to get everyone on a single EHR. But he also knew the transition would be challenging for staff and cause a lot of disruption. He felt that the institution owed it to their doctors to see how technology could make their work easier after such a significant change. After a pretty extensive search and evaluation, Willis Knighton brought in Commure to provide an ambient AI scribe to alleviate some of the burden on their clinical staff.

In a recent interview, Galea along with Ian Shakil, Chief Strategy Officer at Commure sat down with us to share the detailed, carefully planned strategy used by Willis Knighton to choose their ambient AI vendors and roll it out efficiently. Shakil and the team at Commure were one of the original creators of ambient AI, and the company has particular expertise in difficult settings such as emergency departments.

One of the key needs of Willis Knighton was that their AI scribe vendor was able to integrate well with MEDITECH. Plus, Galea said he didn’t want Willis Knighton to be the first customer—or even the tenth—because he didn’t want a vendor to “experiment” on them. He talked to and ruled out many ambient AI vendors that at first looked promising, and settled on Commure and one other vendor for pilots.

Some intensive analytics also went into Willis Knighton’s decisions. They looked at what the doctors were actually doing: when doctors are using the EHR, which parts, and how often have to go back to the same place. They tried the two pilot solutions on 28 specialties, one doctor for each. Shakil praised Willis Knighton, saying they were unusual among providers because “they knew what they wanted” when talking to vendors and did the work to measure those outcomes.

One of the advantages of Commure is that it partners closely with clients. Shakil says they emphasize not just technology, but how to measure and report returns so Willis Knighton was a good match.

Deployment actually went faster than expected, with less time spent on support and 14 months to deploy the solution. Galea did not want a lot of customization or optimization up front. Other factors in choosing both the EHR and ambient AI included data security and cost. Like most providers, Willis Knighton has very limited capital.

Galea is a strong believer in using technology strategically to gain a competitive edge. For instance, they use robots in 60% of the operating rooms. He thinks that only in the past four to five years, the investment the health care industry made in digital technologies is starting to deliver on its promise.

Both Galea and Shakil offered thoughts for the future. Shakil said that, proud as he was to invent the ambient AI scribe, he looks forward to helping it disappear into a broader suite of AI-assisted tools for summaries, search, and other use cases embed in workflows. He also wants Commure to move into more niche settings and RCM.

Galea and Shakil agree that providing more data to consumers “will shift the playing field.”

Watch our interview with Mark Galea from Willis Knighton Health and Ian Shakil from Commure for other valuable insights into a successful roll-out of ambient AI.

Learn more about Commure: https://www.commure.com/

Learn more about Willis Knighton Health: https://www.wkhs.com/

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