Hi, this is Scott Morris. Today in my opinion piece, we're going to talk about something called the two minute revolution. I really want to talk about how are we really going to fix healthcare delivery? And specifically, I care delivery.
So, let's be honest, the current pace of clinical eye care is simply put an artifact of the 20th century. It's stop and go fragmented and incredibly inefficient, at least in my opinion. We are highly trained clinicians yet we spend a what I consider a tragic amount of our day acting as data entry clerks or transcriptionists or retail sales coordinators. We built for many of us our practices around the waiting room, a concept that really by now should be obsolete.
In the near future, if your patient spends more time in one of those, then receiving clinical care, they may just decide to make you and us obsolete from your lives as well. The promise of AI and augmented medical intelligence, which will abbreviate as Amy, AMI, is about not about replacing the doctor. It's about replacing the friction of the current type of eye care delivery cycle. It's about shifting from a model of data collection to data interpretation in a more efficient way that allows for more connection, as well as for more care.
Now, when given lectures, I often talk about what a minute means. I know we often dismiss saving two minutes is pretty negligible, but let's look at what two minutes might actually mean as you become part of the AI revolution. In a high volume clinic setting, seeing 30 patients a day, two minutes per patient is an entire hour of clinical time. That hour isn't just more volume, though.
That might certainly help your profitability. That hour is the difference between a transactional, which is better one or two, and a transformational conversation about how a patient uses their vision to live their life. Or maybe it's a two minute conversation that establishes trust, or a two minute discussion that improves compliance and changes that person's life. That's what two minutes just might mean.
I have your attention. Let's break it down and discuss how shattering our current model next with Amy could improve both the quantity and quality of care. First, what we're going to talk about is patient intake, or what we many times call history taking, which I think the future is the death of the clipboard or even the tablet. In our current workflow, the patient fills out their forms on a clipboard or on some form of tablet, and the doctor staff asks them, then ask the same questions.
The patient's already answered on those said forms while typing into an HR with their, typically with their back turned to the patient. In the very near future, an AI driven pre-visit intake will allow patients to answer dynamic and clinical grade questions via text or voice before they arrive at the office. And in the comfort of their own homes, are they actually going look up and see what medication they're taking instead of going, I think it's a little white pill. By the time they sit in the exam chair, the history of the president, this would already been drafted, summarized, and flagged or tagged for review.
In this future, we stop being stenographers, and that five to seven minutes that we now spend, or the patient spends in your office gathering data, becomes five to seven minutes of analyzing data. We'll start the exam knowing the story, allowing us to immediately build rapport rather than just hunting for facts. Which brings us to point number two of the revolution, which is there's going to be a change in differential diagnosis and diagnostic test efficiency. We're going to go from very much a shock on approach to much more of a sniper using the same analogy.
Currently, we often run a battery test that just to be safe, creating excessive and unnecessary data, not to mention patient fatigue, and decrease workflow. Or we may be miss a subtle sign and under test. In tomorrow's world, the augmented intelligence will act as a diagnostic copilot based on the intake and initial findings AI algorithms will suggest the exact necessary test, not only to refine the differential, but also in the most efficient order to get to the final answer. The augmented intelligence will be our efficiency and success coach.
I'll kind of roll into one. It won't just say glaucoma suspect. AMI will highlight why such as well the RNFL's thinning and that correlates with an IOP spy history. How cool that be.
The net result is that we'll stop overtesting our just in case and start testing with precision. Think about how this will reduce the traffic jam at the OCT or the visual field machine. Now fewer unnecessary tests mean lower overhead and a faster patient journey while the AI safety net catches subtle pathologies of a tired human eye might miss at 4.45 on a Friday. That brings us to part number three, which is clinical decision making and really incorporate that with treatment selection.
The whole idea is can we reduce the cognitive load that we all have to endure right now. Well I think about how difficult it is to be a health care provider these days. I mean providers have to mentally juggle guidelines and insurance formulas and the patient's specific pathology and then pick the ideal treatment for just that patient. Decision fatigue sets in by afternoon and some days, especially in Fridays, even sooner.
Now imagine a world where AMI instantly cross references the patient's diagnosis with the latest treatment protocols and their specific insurance coverages and presents the top three evidence-based treatment options with cost and FXZ comparisons instantly. The net result will be removal of this analysis paralysis that we all suffer and administrative checking allowing us to confidently present the best options to the patient in seconds from a dashboard to displayed in a really convenient place or fingertips. The quality of care rises and the adherence to best practices becomes automatic, not individual provider memory dependent. That brings us to our number four cost saver, which is patient education and I think we're going to get to a spot where it's more visualization over verbalization.
Now contemplate how we currently educate our patients, arguably the second longest part of any clinical care delivery cycle. We explain complex concepts like macular degeneration using plastic models or verbal metaphors while the patient nods often understanding very little and able to relay less to their loved ones when they get home. In the next few years, we'll use generative AI that creates personalized visual aids on the fly. Now we're not there technology-wise yet but we're getting close.
Imagine being able to show your patients their own retina with an AI overlay showing exactly where the damage is and a simulation of how their vision will look in five years if untreated versus them being compliant with the treatment you're going to recommend. And they often can reference that video at any time and share it with family members. Now you've heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. I think personalized simulation might be worth a thousand minutes of explanation over a career or even a year.
Patients will understand faster and adhere better or at least that's our hope. We will save time on repetitive explanations while drastically improving informed consent. And I'm personally looking forward to the day that I don't have to explain what cataracts are or how a progressive works one more time. Now the fifth part is retail purchasing and we're going to call this more purchasing will become more of a curated nudge of behavior change.
So let's venture into that retail world today where the patient wanders the optical dispenser aimlessly overwhelmed by 500 frames of every shape and color and texture and size. Gettishin starts from scratch with their standardized spiel on each individual patient. Well a few years from now and can't delete seeing some of the technological scene it might not be that long before the patient leaves exam chair and AI has already analyzed their facial features, prescriptions, strength and style preferences that it scraped from their intake style quiz that they did at home. It has curated a digital tray of five perfect frames that are in stock in your office and lens appropriate, in other words as if they progressive ready, making the handoff seamless.
The patient feels seen and understood. And the browsing times cut in half, increasing capture rate and optical throughput without the feeling of the hard sell by anyone involved. Frictionless fashion and function all wrapped up into a nice neat package. Love that idea.
Last but not least we have the financial track shaft transactions which are you know should be invisible in instant but that's not the way they really work and when we look at the most frustrating part of most practices it's check out. Our patients waited at desk while their reception is furiously clicked through billing codes, calculates copays and prints receipts. What a buzzkill ending to what was hopefully a great visit. I mean you want to talk about killing the mood.
We do it the way we currently do it. In the not so distant future I will be listening and processing along the way. The AI will know exactly what was done and how long it took so it can code the exam in real time. Send all bills to the necessary parties and generate the patient's final bill the moment the exam ends.
The patient's process the payment excuse me is processed automatically with a card on file or just a single tap. You know kind of like every other financial transaction occurs in the rest of our world. Imagine that us being current. The front desk bottleneck fanishes and maybe even the front desk itself no longer exists because it will no longer serve a purpose.
The staff can focus on scheduling and greeting not math. The patient leaves with a feeling of modern efficiency not administrative friction that we endure today. So here's my challenge industry. We're accepting a slow standard of care because well that's the way it's always been done.
But in a world where AI can drive cars using it as a clinical flow tool is not really all that futuristic. It's just over due. The clinics that adopt these tools will not just be faster. They'll be the ones where doctors actually look patients in the eye because they aren't too busy looking at the screen.
Now that's a novel concept and human care evolution worth considering.