The Most Overlooked Benefit of AI isn’t Clinical – It’s Human

The following is a guest article by Roy Wills, VP, Head of Healthcare Business and Partnerships at Intellias

The conversation around artificial intelligence in healthcare has been dominated by clinical promise for years. We often hear about earlier diagnosis, more accurate imaging reads, predictive analytics, and personalized treatment plans. And, yes, all of that is transformative.

But it does miss what may be one of AI’s most urgent contributions to healthcare today: restoring the human experience of care.

Healthcare systems around the world are facing a workforce crisis that technology alone cannot fix, but that it can significantly relieve. Clinician burnout now threatens patient safety, access to care, and the long-term functioning of health systems. Arguably, in this context, AI’s greatest value is what it gives back to clinicians: time, focus, and professional satisfaction.

Burnout is No Longer a Side Issue

Many physicians today spend more time interacting with computers than with patients – devoting hours to documentation and administrations inside electronic health records (EHR). In the U.S. specifically, clinicians report spending an average of 28 hours a week on administrative work. That burden falls especially heavily on primary care, where documentation requirements, inbox volume, and uncompensated digital communication are weighing heavily on already stretched primary care teams.

The consequences of this load are serious. For some physicians, it’s contributing to feelings of burnout, whilst it’s driving others out of the practice altogether. Workforce attrition compounds access challenges, particularly in underserved communities, making burnout a very real system-level risk.

Encouragingly, clinicians themselves see AI as part of the solution. In an American Medical Association survey, around two-thirds of physicians expressed enthusiasm about AI, particularly for administrative use cases. And that distinction matters, because clinicians are not looking for AI to replace their own judgement, but they are wanting access to tools that remove friction from the work that keeps them from practicing medicine.

AI Working Efficiently in the Background

This is where AI comes into its own, as a quiet, workflow-level tool designed to absorb administrative and cognitive load.

Ambient documentation – often referred to as digital or ambient AI scribes – is one of the clearest examples. These systems use speech recognition and natural language processing to listen to clinician-patient interactions, generate structured medical notes, populate diagnostic fields, and support billing and coding in real time. The goal here is for the technology to stay in the background, so human-centric care can come into the foreground.

Early evidence suggests this approach works. One study showed that digital scribes can improve documentation efficiency by nearly threefold. Significantly, one multicentre evaluation across six U.S. health systems – a mix of academic medical centers and community hospitals – found that after just 30 days of using an ambient AI scribe for patient visits, the percentage of physicians reporting burnout dropped from roughly 52% to 39% – representing 74% lower odds of experiencing burnout.

These gains are tangible because they address some of the root causes of burnout, including wasted time and mental exhaustion. When clinicians are relieved from having to duplicate information, copy forward redundant information, or complete notes long after clinical hours, they regain control over their time. The sense of agency gained as a result can be deeply powerful for the individual.

The Compounding Effects of a Lighter Load

Documentation is, of course, only one piece of the administrative jigsaw. Inbox management has been another major driver of overload. Even before the pandemic, family physicians spend on average 1.5 hours per day managing inbox messages. Today, U.S. clinicians receive nearly three times as many inbox messages as their international counterparts, many of them system-generated and low value.

Meanwhile, patient portal messages – though a small percentage of total volume – demand careful attention and have increased dramatically since the pandemic. AI-enabled triage, routing, and automated reply technologies are increasingly being used to manage this flood swiftly – and more intelligently.

By filtering, prioritizing, and routing messages to appropriate care teams, these tools reduce unnecessary interruptions and protect clinicians’ cognitive bandwidth. The result is not just faster responses, but more sustainable communication.

What’s less comprehensively understood is how these improvements ripple across healthcare operations. Better documentation leads to cleaner coding, cleaner coding leads to fewer denials, and fewer denials strengthens financial performance. Not to mention the downstream reduction of administrative re-work. Consistent follow-ups also improves continuity of care and patient trust.

Re-Humanising Clinical Work, Not Replacing It

None of this is to say that AI adoption is risk-free. Poorly designed systems can achieve the opposite of what’s intended – adding complexity, eroding clinical skills, and creating new forms of work rather than eliminating old ones. And there are legitimate concerns about job displacement and over-automation, which is precisely why value-aligned implementation should be front of mind.

It’s why the most successful AI tools in healthcare today share a common philosophy: they are built to support clinicians, not supplement them. They focus on removing low-value work, whilst preserving – and enhancing – the clinician-patient relationship. And when thoughtfully implemented, AI can, indirectly, help to restore a sense of purpose that many clinicians feel is slipping away. It can enable them to practice at the top of their game, to listen more closely, and to leave work without always feeling exhausted.

The Invaluable Human Return of AI in Healthcare

In most cases, it isn’t a lack of innovation that healthcare suffers from – it’s the lack of human capacity. As burnout accelerates, no amount of clinical intelligence will matter if there are not enough clinicians able to deliver the care that’s needed.

Which is precisely why the true, and perhaps most overlooked, value of AI is not in clinical insight, but in rebuilding the human experience of delivering care – the very foundation of our healthcare systems.

About Roy Wills

Roy Wills is a senior healthcare technology and engineering services executive with over 25 years of experience driving growth, innovation, and operational excellence across global markets. As the Global Head of Healthcare & Life Sciences and Cloud Partnerships at Intellias, he leads end-to-end strategy, sales, and delivery for North America, accelerating digital transformation for enterprise clients.

Over the past eight years, Roy has spearheaded sales, operations, go-to-market strategy, and strategic partnerships within the Healthcare and Life Sciences sector. He has built high-performing teams and scaled complex businesses to deliver sustained revenue growth.