We interviewed Dr. Mike Raghunath to understand how Playback Pro helps him save time on his notes and spend more attentive time with his patients.

Dr. Mike Raghunath is a Family Physician in Glen Cove, New York. He works for Northwell Glen Cove as a faculty physician where he works with the residency program. He’s also assistant professor for the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Northwell. 

As a busy doctor wearing several hats as well as seeing many patients a week (averages to about 100 per week!), Dr. Raghunath understands the importance of saving time where it counts while still being present with his patients.

In order to move through his work days with more focus and energy directed in the most efficient ways possible, Dr. Raghunath turned to Playback Pro to help him juggle the many responsibilities that come with being a busy doctor. 

Not enough time in a day for doctors 

In addition to all the normal stressors that come with being a medical professional, a big pain point and time-drain for all doctors is the paperwork that comes with seeing patients. Doctors have to fill out tedious clinical notes for every patient they see, and they often aren’t able to do so until after work hours when they’re home. Take-home work on top of an already stressful workday stokes the conditions for burnout, with 49% of doctors still reporting symptoms of burnout. 

Dr. Raghunath was used to writing all of his notes from scratch. With an average of 15 to 20 patients a day, those notes added up. 

In order to guarantee note-accuracy for later completion, doctors have to take tedious notes during their patient visits so they don’t forget anything when filing patient paperwork after the work day. With such high stakes to remember everything important in the moment, clinicians are forced into a high-pressure transcription role that can hinder them from fully listening to their patients with undivided attention. 

Dr. Raghunath would juggle jotting down key words and phrases during patient appointments while trying to hear and remember everything else being said. 

“My old note-taking habits consisted of jotting down buzzwords and facts during the visit for future reference. Then after completing my full patient-care day, I expanded greatly on the notes I jotted down earlier. It would involve me typing a detailed history of present illness as well as a sufficient assessment and plan section. Past medical history, surgical history, family history, social history, and sexual history, review of systems, and physical exam portion of the note involve a lot of clicking boxes and basic typing of phrases.”

After a long day’s work, a long evening of paperwork and charting would follow.

Enter Playback Pro, helping where it matters most

How can clinicians get their paperwork done in a more efficient way and also have more time to talk to their patients face-to-face with undivided attention? It might sound too good to be true, but Playback Pro utilizes state-of-the-art ambient listening technology that acts as another set of “eyes” and “ears” for clinicians, recording patient encounters and transcribing notes instantly.

With patient consent, clinicians can hit record on their Playback Pro app during each patient encounter and then converse freely with their patients with the confidence and certainty that nothing will get missed or forgotten during the appointment.

When it comes time to file their notes for each patient appointment, clinicians can sit back while Playback Pro transcribes, summarizes, and diarizes their verbal conversation and findings into a complete clinical note that they can then edit as they please. 

“The AI features save me time when I'm writing notes because I'm able to make edits to the previously-written words rather than taking time of my own to type them out. Even more importantly, I don't have to worry about jotting things down during the patient encounter while the patient is talking to me.”

Playback Pro works like an ever present assistant, ready to file and record while doctors do what they were trained to do: care for people.

Dr. Raghunath enlists Playback Pro support

Playback Pro handles the administrative clinical work so doctors can get back to doctoring. 

For Dr. Raghunath, that means getting out from behind the computer and back in front of his patients.

“I feel the patients really appreciate that one-on-one time that I'm able to give them, face-to-face, eyes-to-eyes, away from the computer screen. Because there will be certain amounts of time during the encounter I have to be on the computer—I’ll have to put in orders, I’ll have to look at the test results, or I’ll have to read them the test results. But if I can just have that human connection for the time that I'm not typing—that is so important.” 

“As physicians, our minds are constantly churning while patients talk to us. A quick sentence mentioned once in a 15-to-30 minute encounter could possibly get overlooked. There's a way to catch these subtle details and add them to the note, then you can always look back at the associated transcription to kind of remind yourself, 'Oh yeah, oh my god, that's right! They did say something about this, I didn't even realize because I was so busy thinking about the last thing you said.' So it has really helped..”

Helping doctors doctor better

By automating clinical notes, physicians save serious time every day.

Dr. Raghunath sees about 100 patients a week, and saves an average of 4 minutes per patient note by editing Playback Pro’s transcribed clinical notes. That’s about seven hours saved each week that can go back to his life and family outside of work. 

By recording each conversation with his patients, Dr. Raghunath is able to stay present and attentive in his conversations with his patients in a profound new way that helps him hear everything his patients are saying. His increased attentiveness increases his accuracy, using Playback Pro’s transcriptions as a safety net that doesn’t let any information fall through the cracks.

“Given the heavy patient volume that we're expected to see daily coupled with the importance of having detailed notes, especially in a litigious society, I feel like having Playback Pro has proven to be very useful for many reasons.”

Playback Pro for doctor support and empowerment

Clinicians aren’t superheroes. Despite making it through medical school and working under stressful stakes every day, they can’t be expected to carry every aspect of effective healthcare on their backs. 

The introduction of AI tools to health systems in desperate need of support is right on time. These new tools help doctors simplify, organize, and complete all the bureaucratic tedium that crowds their desks so they can get back to what brought them to medicine in the first place: a desire to care for people in need.

To hear more from Dr. Raghunath, watch his Playback Pro testimonial here.