How Sunoh.ai helps at a university student health center
For many young Americans, attending college marks the first time they have been truly on their own, responsible for decisions about housing, meals, and how to strike a balance between their educational responsibilities and the freedoms that collegiate life offers.
But college is also a time for students to take charge of another important area of life — healthcare.
The college or university health clinic isn’t necessarily anyone’s idea of a fun place, but many students wind up there at some point. After all, if you require medical attention during the school year, heading home to see the family doctor is usually not an option.
“One of the biggest things for us at the student Health Center, is this is the first time they’re basically making their own appointments without their parents,” said Tamir Hussain, director of operations at Indiana University Student Health Center.
That first independent medical interaction, Hussain said, is an important moment. The student health center aims to foster a healthy campus environment by focusing on student well-being and educational engagement and emphasizing meaningful, face-to-face interactions.
Indiana University: Focusing on the student/provider encounter
The collegiate healthcare setting may also be a much larger one than many students are accustomed to — with the potential to be intimidating, impersonal, or hard to navigate.
“We are a Big 10 university,” Hussain said. “We do have the largest school of medicine at the Indianapolis campus. At the Health Center we have, obviously, the medical clinic, we have travel, immunization, counseling and psychological services, physical therapy, an eye clinic. We do have a pharmacy on premises, a lab, and radiology. So, it’s kind of like a mini hospital.”
Bearing in mind the scale and scope of the services they offer, Indiana University health officials seek healthcare IT capable of providing comprehensive services with the personal touch they want and students need.
Focusing on quality care and interactions with Sunoh.ai
For the university’s Health Center, the top priority is providing high-quality care to students, which begins with ensuring that students get face-to-face attention during their visits, with as few distractions as possible.
Students already enjoyed access to a patient portal and single sign-on using their university credentials, meaning there is no need for them to remember a password or log-in when seeking medical care.
Like medical providers everywhere, those at the school’s Health Center were interested in finding still more ways to improve service, including minimizing the distractions a computer keyboard and screen can pose when they are trying to maintain eye contact with the patient.
Naturally, then, they turned to an AI medical scribe as a cost-effective solution. And Sunoh.ai medical scribe was a natural choice, ensuring that the information captured in each patient visit can be reviewed and readily added to the patient’s record.
Helping providers remain focused on the art of medicine
With its ambient listening technology and ability to process natural language conversations, Sunoh.ai is great for creating quality experiences for students. With Sunoh’s medical scribe taking care of the clinical details, providers can maintain eye contact with students.
But Sunoh is also great for providers.
“Sunoh.ai has been a game-changer for our providers, helping eliminate the documentation burden and allowing our providers ample time to speak with patients,” said Hussain. “Using Sunoh.ai, our providers can prioritize patient engagement, ensuring a deeper understanding of the student’s needs. Our providers like that they can edit and review the draft SOAP note and then pull it into the system. Other departments note that they love Sunoh.ai because it does the heavy lifting of capturing initial notes and medical histories.”
While a university health center may not have the same volume of patients and pressures faced by busy hospitals and larger organizations, it is still important to achieve efficiency.
“The most expensive resources are providers,” Hussain said. “You don’t want them spending time just doing basic data entry. It’s a big stress point for them: ‘Am I going to have the note done in time? Do I have to come back and look at my notes? Did I miss anything from the previous encounters?’ So, when I saw the demo for Sunoh, it was like I want to be one of the first pilot users and we did that.”
Sunoh’s reception among providers and students
Hussain said that at first some providers at the university health center were a bit hesitant about using an AI medical scribe. Many did not understand artificial intelligence or were reluctant to turn over a core medical function — documentation — to an AI agent.
“Providers are creatures of habit,” Hussain said. “They don’t like anything new. So, it was really like grabbing ahold of someone, like ‘OK, let’s do a demo.’ And just in the demo they’re like ‘OK, I will give this a try,’ and then just looking at the metrics I can see like ‘OK, this provider is using it for every appointment.’ Then there’s the healthy competition amongst the providers: ‘How is provider A completing all of their notes before the end of the day? I want that as well!'”
The providers who were initially most reluctant, Hussain said, are now the most enthusiastic users of Sunoh, using it for every encounter.
Sunoh has also been readily embraced by students.
“They’re very tech savvy,” Hussain noted. “When the provider does mention that ‘Hey, I’m going to turn this on,’ they’re like ‘Tell me more about this.’ And they’re just fascinated. They love the technology. Students use AI Copilot and ChatGPT to do their assignments, so they’re familiar with AI and what that can do.”
Sunoh and the future of AI in medicine
Hussain acknowledges that Sunoh.ai, like any AI technology, is still developing and improving. Over the last year of using the technology, providers have seen steady improvement in the accuracy of the product, particularly as Sunoh recognizes various verbal cues and consistently places information into the correct section of the Progress Note.
“I think we’ve been burned by the idea that AI is going to solve everything,” Hussain said. “Maybe Hollywood ruined us! You know, we heard about AI is coming for decades. But what’s fascinating is that Sunoh is an example of it really being here now.”
Hussain said the most important factor is ensuring that providers and students alike are comfortable using Sunoh and any other healthcare IT.
“Again, it’s a student Health Center. We don’t expect providers to see 40 patients a day,” he said. “It’s really like, OK whatever your bandwidth is we want you to be comfortable and relaxed when you see your patients. Just having the face time, the personal connection with the patient — that’s what makes student health so wonderful. Our part is to educate the students about healthcare so they are better consumers down the line. They are adults now, and we want to give them a proper stepping stone into adult life.”
To learn more about Sunoh.ai and how the AI-powered EHR transforms patient engagement, enhances efficiency, and reduces costs, visit www.sunoh.ai.
