Sometimes the best medical tools aren’t inside a doctor’s bag. They’re digital. Digital platforms are delivering on the promise of greater physician experience.

Doctors spend countless hours on clerical tasks that often don’t require their level of expertise. Typically done outside the standard workday, these administrative chores drive burnout within the profession. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Health systems, including Sutter, are investing in digital platforms that help reduce administrative burden and increase one-on-one time with patients. Physicians and advanced practice clinicians at Sutter have helped spearhead these changes and now have the results to show for it.

Software Converts Conversations to Clinical Notes

In early April 2024, Sutter began piloting software from Abridge, Inc. It uses ambient listening and generative artificial intelligence to create draft clinical notes during medical encounters. With patient consent, the software summarizes conversations, in the EHR, in real-time. Documentation is done once a clinician reviews, edits and approves the draft note.

Early pilot results showed doctors saved time. With increased use (more than 900 Sutter clinicians used Abridge in 2024) even more benefits emerged. Throughout the experience, Sutter has been evaluating data to measure the technology’s effects on clinician well-being, clinical quality and doctor-patient relationships.

The qualitative survey focused on desired results, by design. “The US faces a doctor shortage and burnout crisis, so when clinicians say they feel more satisfied and have less cognitive load, those are indicators we pay attention to,” says Stephanie Driscoll, vice president of applications for Sutter Health.

Read Abridge’s case study.

Clinician well-being: The qualitative survey results found 78% of clinicians reported “significant improvement in their job satisfaction,” when using Abridge. With less administrative burden, this sentiment signals a better work-life balance and less burnout.

Additionally, 49% of clinicians reported less “cognitive load.” When clinicians have more space to think and process the information a patient shares, it can improve their decision making.

Dr. Alice Woo, a Sutter West Bay Medical Group plastic surgeon says, “Abridge has been a life-changing experience. Now, I can focus on my patient’s problem throughout the diagnosis and the treatment plan. I feel like my conversation with patients is much more intimate and therapeutic.”

Quality: Nearly 60% of clinicians surveyed felt the quality of their clinical notes improved with Abridge. Taking this result further, Sutter also started providing more patient-friendly clinical notes to patients within after-visit summaries – so patients can more easily refer to relevant parts of their conversation with their provider.

“Abridge helps me provide better care,” says Sutter Medical Group vascular surgeon, Dr. Joel Crawford. ” Now when the patient leaves, they have a detailed treatment plan in words that they can understand.”

Doctor-patient relationship: When clinicians are unchained from a computer, focused facetime with patients goes up. More than 50% of Sutter clinicians said Abridge lets them give more undivided attention to patients, an important driver of patient experience.

“The amount of time that clinicians spend charting is very substantial,” says Dr. Veena Jones, vice president and chief medical information officer for Sutter Health. “Putting Abridge in the hands of our clinicians is really allowing us to focus on patients first while keeping all of our people at the heart of what we do.”

Buoyed by the positive feedback received so far and overall pilot outcomes, Sutter now plans to test Abridge across its hospitals in emergency department and hospital room settings.

AI Helps Write Preliminary Responses to Patient Questions 

Augmented Response Technology, or ART, is a generative artificial intelligence tool that drafts a preliminary response to patient questions sent through Sutter’s online patient portal. Built by Epic, one of the largest EHR vendors, the ChatGPT-like technology can help clinicians respond to inquiries about symptoms or medication side effects. Each draft message is a “starting point,” which a clinician reviews and revises before sending to the patient.

Sutter started using ART in 2023 with a small pilot and more than 3,000 Sutter clinicians have used the technology to-date. With more than 220,000 ART drafted messages sent so far, Sutter clinicians have found the tool valuable in streamlining patient communication and effective in drafting responses to complex, multi-part questions. In fact, data are showing up to 20% time savings, on average, over manual responses. Sutter clinicians who piloted the change noticed a reduction in mental fatigue, too.

Digital Enhancements Minimize Nonessential Messages 

Digital enhancements to Sutter’s My Health Online patient portal have also reduced the number of appointment-related messages that come into a physician’s in-basket – the folders in the EHR where secure messages accumulate. In 2023 Sutter estimated that self-service online tools reduced in-basket messages related to appointment cancellation requests by 94% and reduced messaging related to appointment requests by 27%.

• In 2024 Sutter patients self-scheduled more than 4 million appointments, a nearly 20% increase from the prior year.
• Sutter care teams saved approximately 291,000 hours of work thanks to automated registration.
• And more than 699,000 FastPass digital waitlist offers helped patients secure earlier appointments.

Sutter’s real-time virtual chat assistant, two-way texting and centralized 1-800-4SUTTER phone number are believed to help eliminate unnecessary in-basket messages too. These features also helped Sutter rank above its peers in digital infrastructure and patient engagement, earning the organization CHIME Digital Health’s Most Wired award in 2024 and 2023.

Streamlining communication is a big win, and there are even more opportunities with generative AI. Epic has developed clinical chart summaries, revenue cycle and coding assistants, and patient outreach automation. Sutter is working to pilot several of these now, with more on the way in 2025.

“From AI charts to better message management to a first pass on paperwork, Sutter Health is committed to supporting clinicians, so they can support patients,” said Laura Wilt, Sutter’s chief digital officer. “In 2024, we ‘gave back’ over 1 million hours to employees and physicians through automation, technology enhancements and more efficient workflows and we’re striving for even greater results in 2025.”