Royal Devon patients and staff are welcoming the new cutting-edge AI technology that helps clinicians to focus more time on seeing patients.  
 
Ambient Voice Technology (AVT) uses specialist speech-to-text AI to capture consultations and create accurate notes and clinic letters ready for the clinician to review and approve.  
The aim is to improve patient care, with clinicians able to give patients their full attention and see more patients overall because of time saved writing notes.  
 
Once fully rolled out this could equate to around 15,000 additional appointments across Royal Devon each year. It has the potential to transform outpatient care and significantly help to reduce waiting times for patients.   
 
The technology has now been used in over 600 patient consultations at Royal Devon as part of an initial pilot phase that launched in September. Patients and clinicians alike have given positive feedback about the technology.  
 
Paul Mitchell, the first Royal Devon patient to have AVT used in their appointment, said, “The clinician gave me eye to eye contact throughout our appointment which made me feel very comfortable and made the appointment feel much more personable especially when hearing some difficult news.”  
 
Another patient described their take on the new technology, “I had a look at the notes, and it has put them into a brilliant format that is then used to send a letter to me, to my doctors practice and to my registered heart nurse. I think it looks really good. [...] If it frees-up more time for patients to be seen and other tasks to be completed then it can only be a good thing really” 
 
Staff are similarly impressed. Ben Peyton-Jones, Consultant Gynaecologist said, “Having tried AVT I was excited to see how it worked in real life and it did not disappoint. It captured some very complex consultations accurately with excellent documentation. This will save me time and allow me to focus more attention on my patients.” 

The project team are working closely with clinicians to listen to feedback and continuously improve how the system works. One area that they are developing is the clinician specific letters. The team are reviewing and improving the letter template to make sure the information is appropriately detailed.
 
As well as seeking feedback, the Trust is working collaboratively with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) HealthTech Research Centre (HRC) in Sustainable Innovation and the University of Exeter to thoroughly evaluate the impact of AVT and ensure that it continues to improve care.    
 
Royal Devon is working to roll AVT out to all outpatient clinics over the coming months. The Trust has also started a project to scope whether the technology can be used to improve care in the Emergency Departments.   
 
Professor Adrian Harris, Chief Medical Officer for Digital and Research said, “This is about using innovation to improve care for patients. We’re leading the way in how we use this technology  - we’re the first Trust to introduce Ambient Voice Technology in a way that is fully integrated with our Electronic Patient Record, Epic - all the Royal Devon teams involved should be incredibly proud of the work they've done to make that possible.”