AI-Powered Augnito Aims to Tackle Doctor Burnout and Boost Efficiency in Healthcare: CEO Rustom Lawyer
By Arunima Rajan
In an interview with Arunima Rajan, Rustom Lawyer, CEO of Augnito, an AI based speech to text tool talks about whether AI is the cure for doctor burnout.
You’ve been an entrepreneur from a young age, founding Scribetech while still in college. Can you walk us through the early days of Scribetech and what inspired you to focus on clinical documentation for the healthcare sector?
In 2004, I launched Scribetech with Shiraz Austin. The company pioneered clinical documentation services within the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) as well as independent healthcare organizations in the region. As a natural progression from a medical transcription BPO, we began developing Augnito as a cloud-based voice intelligence more than ten years ago. The future, as we saw it, was in a SaaS product suite that could augment clinician capabilities while also addressing the rampant burnout crisis. We saw an opportunity to leverage AI and voice technology specifically (due to its highly intuitive nature), to dramatically improve clinical workflows and give doctors more time for what matters most - caring for patients.
Rustom Lawyer, CEO, Augnito
Co-designed by clinicians & AI scientists, Augnito was born with the aim of combining human- centric design and cutting-edge technology to help institutions establish a strong backbone for a centralized healthcare infrastructure. By enabling improved efficiency, shorter turnaround times, fewer clinical errors and ultimately, the ability to provide better patient care – we envisioned the creation of a truly doctor-centric virtual assistant.
Augnito is now a leading solution in Voice AI for Clinical Documentation and Ambient Clinical Intelligence, serving more than 500 hospitals and 15,000 clinicians worldwide. Our solutions help automate workflows, ensure quality and precision across administrative tasks, and equip clinicians with the latest evidence-based recommendations and insights in real time.
By creating intelligence stacks for clinicians across the care continuum and ensuring that they are highly secure yet extremely accessible, at Augnito, we’re striving to enhance the human touch in healthcare - making it more efficient, accurate, and patient-focused than ever before.
Augnito is built to cater specifically to the needs of Indian doctors and medical professionals. Can you share the journey of its development, and what were the most significant challenges in creating a voice AI system tailored for Indian accents?
Augnito is built to cater to clinicians across the globe! We’re proud to be made-in-India, but for the world, and more importantly, the entire continuum of healthcare – across all medical specialties, settings and departments.
To develop Augnito, we applied several years of hands-on experience with clinical workflows and complex healthcare integrations. Over 20 years, we have accumulated unique insights into the intricacies of healthcare operations and governance - developing a deep and holistic understanding of global healthcare systems and the need to reimagine them. We first worked with professors from MIT to develop Clinical Speech Recognition technology and optimize the service. Then R&D with professors from Sheffield University and IIT Bombay helped develop and automate the technology further. In the interim, we also launched revenue cycle management services in the UAE as a new service line for the business. Today, we are proud to be a leader in the field of Voice AI & Ambient Clinical Intelligence across the continuum of care, with over 500 hospitals and 15,000 clinicians on our platform.
In a complex market like India, the patient to doctor ratio is an appalling 1700:1 and 70% of all healthcare infrastructure is in the metropolitan cities (catering to just 30% of the population). Existing EMR systems featured tedious inputs, menus and drop-down boxes, coupled with underdeveloped user interfaces further complicate administrative streamlining. Finally, in India we also have a plethora of regional accents as well as native languages – which when employed in the high-precision environment of healthcare – need to be accurately and seamlessly captured and interpreted.
We’re proud to say that not only have we made the process more intuitive, but also have 99% straight out of the box accuracy for any accent of spoken English. That means clinicians spend no time on voice profile training – they can get started as soon as they subscribe. Our Ambient Clinical Intelligence also supports over 37 languages for conversation capture, making it a truly scalable and inclusive technology.
What sets Augnito apart from other voice-to-text solutions in the market? How did you incorporate your years of experience with NHS to shape Augnito’s functionality in India?
I believe Augnito stands out due to our team’s deep understanding of clinical workflows and healthcare operations, honed over 20 years of working with the NHS and other global healthcare systems. Our experience with complex healthcare integrations and governance has allowed us to develop a holistic understanding of what clinicians need to improve their workflows. Augnito is specifically designed for clinical documentation, incorporating medical terminologies, abbreviations, and a vast clinical lexicon (catering to over 55 medical specialties and subspecialties) that ensures high accuracy and efficiency. Our collaboration with clinicians and AI scientists has resulted in a user-friendly interface that minimizes the learning curve and requires no voice profile training, making it accessible to clinicians across various specialties and settings. We also support over 37 languages for clinical conversation capture, and have proved return on investment for our clients of 21 times, within just six months.
Augnito is universally accessible on iPhone, Android, Chrome extension and Windows application, and is also compatible with leading global clinical platforms via deep integration, as well as low-code and no-code options for direct dictation and data transfer capabilities in any HIS/EMR/PACS/RIS. We help boost top and bottom-line for healthcare enterprises, with more comprehensive clinical notes for claims processing. We’re also continuously innovating to enhance Clinical Documentation Integrity at source and automate clinical coding capabilities (SNOMED, ICD-10, CPT, SBS) and RCM.
You’ve emphasized the role of voice AI in supporting overworked doctors. Could you delve into how Augnito helps relieve their administrative burden and enhances clinical efficiency?
Augnito is designed to alleviate the administrative burden on clinicians by automating clinical documentation tasks, streamlining workflows, and enhancing data management. Our voice AI technology allows clinicians to dictate patient notes, observations, and treatment plans directly into the system, which then accurately transcribes and integrates this information into electronic health records (EHRs). This not only speeds up documentation but also reduces errors, improves data accuracy, and enhances the accessibility of patient data.
Naturally, voice-based systems are 4 times faster than manual ones. However, there are a host of features within our products that contribute significantly to easing the burden on clinicians and improving the overall quality of care. These include:
Dynamic Templates
Intuitive Voice Commands
Increased Productivity with Macros
Personalized Reporting with Custom Vocabulary
Global Language Support
Clinical Documentation Integrity (CDI)
Automatic Code Retrieval
Simplified EMR Usability
Easy Integrations via APIs & SDKs
Moreover, Augnito's ambient clinical intelligence capabilities enable real-time capture of clinical conversations, automating the creation of patient notes, and reducing the need for manual data entry. This frees up clinicians to focus more on patient care, reduces administrative tasks, and minimizes the risk of burnout. By automating routine tasks, Augnito helps clinicians reclaim time, reduce paperwork, and improve their overall work-life balance.
Given the strain on healthcare systems worldwide, especially during the pandemic, how do you envision voice AI scaling healthcare delivery in multi-specialty hospitals, both in India and globally?
Voice AI has the potential to significantly enhance healthcare delivery by improving communication and operational efficiency in multi-specialty hospitals. During the pandemic, the need for rapid and accurate information exchange became evident. Voice AI can facilitate this by enabling seamless interaction between healthcare providers, ensuring that critical patient information is readily available across departments. In India and globally, it can help standardize documentation practices, reduce language barriers with multilingual support, and optimize resource allocation by automating repetitive tasks. This not only improves patient outcomes but also allows healthcare systems to scale effectively without compromising on quality of care. As voice AI continues to evolve, it will play a pivotal role in creating more resilient healthcare infrastructures capable of handling increased patient loads and complex medical scenarios.
A comprehensive six-month case study conducted by Augnito in collaboration with a healthcare institution has demonstrated significant improvements in clinician efficiency. The findings revealed a 46% surge in overall productivity, with time savings amounting to 44 hours each month. Additionally, the study noted a five-hour reduction in turnaround times. Notably, 35% of the clinicians involved reported their capacity to manage more consultations, marking a considerable enhancement in healthcare delivery.
In your view, how can voice AI contribute to creating a more sustainable healthcare system, especially in terms of reducing burnout among medical professionals?
Voice AI contributes to a more sustainable healthcare system by addressing key factors that lead to clinician burnout: excessive administrative workload, inefficient workflows, and lack of time for direct patient interaction. By automating documentation and routine tasks, voice AI reduces the cognitive load on medical professionals, allowing them to focus on meaningful patient engagement. This shift not only improves job satisfaction but also enhances the quality of care provided.
Additionally, it supports continuous learning and decision-making by providing real-time access to clinical guidelines and insights. By streamlining processes and improving workflow efficiency, voice AI helps create a balanced work environment that promotes clinician well-being and sustainability within existing healthcare systems.
You’ve been actively working with academic institutions like IIT Bombay on Natural Language Processing. Can you tell us more about your collaboration with Professor Pushpak Bhattacharyya and the impact of this research on Augnito’s AI capabilities?
Our collaboration with Professor Pushpak Bhattacharyya, a renowned academic from IIT Bombay has been truly inspiring. We were awarded the Abdul Kalam Technology Innovation National Fellowship a couple of years ago, as an industrial partner along with the professor for our work in revolutionizing Radiology reporting. Several scientific papers that we have published together are featured in some of the top NLP & AI forums. Our collaborative research at this stage was invaluable as it laid the foundations for Augnito to build more robust capabilities for our technology and expand - with first- hand feedback - into several other medical specialties as well.
What are the primary challenges in integrating voice AI into healthcare, particularly in emerging markets like India? How do you address the issues of accessibility and affordability for smaller hospitals or clinics?
The primary challenges in integrating voice AI into healthcare in emerging markets like India include data security concerns, variability in speech patterns, and the need for continuous system training and improvement. There’s also the need to help doctors transition from legacy processes and systems to updated ones.
To address these challenges, we have implemented robust security measures, including encryption and access controls, to safeguard patient data. We have also developed a user-friendly interface that minimizes the learning curve and requires no voice profile training, making it accessible to clinicians across various specialties and settings. Additionally, we offer flexible pricing plans and scalable solutions that can be tailored to meet the needs of smaller hospitals or clinics.
However, the most important aspect is our approach to Customer Success. By focusing heavily on providing the best onboarding and ongoing service experience, we ensure that the adoption of our technology is entirely hassle-free. This in turn pays dividends in the form of advocacy, as clinicians themselves become our biggest champions. Augnito is also determined to enable all types of individuals and organizations to drive change, whether they are first time users of such technology or customers transitioning from legacy solutions. It is this relentless focus on Customer Success, via dedicated managers, 24x7 technical support and free-of-cost personal training sessions and product demos, that has enabled us to integrate with over 500 hospitals, across more than 25 geographies.
As AI-driven healthcare solutions like Augnito become more widespread, how do you ensure data privacy and security, especially given the sensitive nature of medical records?
Data privacy and security are paramount at Augnito. We have implemented robust security measures, including encryption, access controls, and regular security audits, to safeguard patient data. Our governance structures are built on two decades of healthcare experience. We comply with industry- standard regulations, including HIPAA, ISO 27001, and SOC2, to ensure the security and privacy of patient data. Our solutions are designed to protect patient data at all times, and we work closely with healthcare organizations to ensure seamless integration and compliance with existing security protocols. We also offer customers a choice between a secure, cloud-based SaaS solution or an on- premises deployment. Both options ensure industry standard compliance and data localization.
Lastly, given your vast experience in healthcare and AI, what excites you most about the future of healthcare technology, and where do you see yourself and Augnito five years from now?
I am truly excited about the potential of AI to transform healthcare delivery, making it more efficient, accessible, and patient-centric. In the next five years, I envision Augnito continuing to lead the way in voice AI for clinical documentation and ambient clinical intelligence, expanding our reach to more hospitals and clinicians worldwide. We will continue to innovate and improve our solutions, leveraging advancements in AI and its associated technologies to enhance clinical efficiency, improve patient outcomes, and reduce burnout among medical professionals. Our goal is to make healthcare more sustainable, resilient, and focused on what matters most – patient care. We envision Augnito as the optimal AI for clinicians. There is huge potential for agentic workflows, and we are focusing deep R&D on the same, so watch the space! The services aspect of healthcare itself is a trillion-dollar industry – and the total addressable market is therefore massive.