Welcome to the Empowered Patient Podcast with Karen Jagoda. This show is a window into the latest innovations in applying generative AI, novel therapeutics and vaccines, and the changing dynamics in the medical and healthcare environment. One focus is on how providers, pharmaceutical companies, and payers are empowering patients. In addition, conversations are often about how providers, care facilities, pharmaceutical companies, and payers are being empowered by technology to improve patient outcomes and reduce friction across the healthcare landscape.
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May 7, 2025
David Norris, Founder and CEO of Affineon Health Inc., recognizes the significant problem of provider burnout, which is primarily caused by the time doctors spend on administrative tasks rather than with the patient. Affineon's AI-powered solution aims to address this by automating the review of the provider's inbox and reducing their cognitive load. The inboxes are filled with lab results, pharmacy messages, and other tasks that need review. This approach enables doctors to focus on the required actions quickly.
David explains, "We're attacking one of the biggest problems providers often complain about: the inbox. And this is their clinical inbox, not their email inbox like you and I have. The clinical inbox is typically filled with hundreds of things that come in daily. For a PCP, this can often include things like lab results. So you go to your doctor for your annual wellness visit, and they order five to 10 different labs, which come into their inbox the next day. If you're seeing 20 patients a day, that's hundreds of results, plus you're getting prescription renewal requests from the pharmacies, you're getting patient messages. The provider, while trying to stay focused on seeing 20 patients a day and keeping their focus on those patients, they're now literally trying to squeeze a little inbox time in before and after patients."
"Affineon has introduced an AI inbox that integrates directly into the electronic health record system. We do exactly what you would do if you hired an assistant in the medical terminology, triage your inbox, which is to handle everything they can handle. The provider focuses on the most critical things. So we're using an AI agent to do that, and unlike a human, which would be very costly to do this, our solution costs $2.50 a day. So about half a cup of coffee. So, for a provider to now have the ability to have an assistant triage their inbox every day and to help them by reducing their daily inbox volume by up to 50%-60%, that's pretty incredible. And before AI, that wasn't possible."
#Affineon #MedAI #ProviderBurnout #AIInbox
