The power of AI Virtual Clinical Assistants – A New Team Member in Your Practice
Peter Yellowlees MD
Imagine having a virtual teammate who handles routine interviews and paperwork, so you can focus on patients. AsyncHealth’s AI clinical assistants make this a reality. They come in two forms: an AI Virtual Interviewer that conducts patient intakes, and an Ambient AI Scribe that documents sessions automatically. Working with these assistants is like gaining a super-efficient co-worker – one who never forgets a question and never tires of note-taking. Clinicians remain firmly in control, but much of the busywork is offloaded to AI. A perfect use of AI in healthcare that enables clinicians to spend more time on paid work that actually makes a difference.
So how do you collaborate with AsyncHealth’s AI assistants? It starts when a patient needs an evaluation. Instead of waiting weeks for an appointment, the patient can complete an AI-guided video interview on their own time. The lifelike AI interviewer greets them and asks all the standard clinical questions – from history to symptom checklists – following a structured protocol, and with perfect thoroughness. While the patient speaks freely (often more comfortably than in a rushed clinic visit), the system records and transcribes everything. No clinician has to be present during this step. As the clinician, you step in after, at your convenience when you review the interview recording and transcript along with an AI-generated summary that highlights key points and a draft of your clinical notes developed on our mental health records templates. By the time you see the patient, the AI assistants have already done the intake interview and drafted the note for you.
Clinicians who have used AsyncHealth report that it feels natural to work with AI helpers. It is like having a resident clinician working with you. You are still the decision-maker – you review the AI assistant’s notes, add your assessment, and finalize the plan – but you don’t have to spend an hour asking routine questions or typing lengthly notes. On average, providers get back 1–2 hours each day that would have been spent charting or doing repetitive interviews. This freed time can be redirected to more patient care or simply ending your day on time – a huge boost for work-life balance and burnout reduction.
Importantly, quality of care remains high. Decades of research on asynchronous telepsychiatry show that diagnoses and treatment recommendations from reviewing recorded interviews are just as reliable as traditional in-person evaluations. In fact, providers often find the data more comprehensive. The AI interviewer never skips a question, and patients often share more detailed history in the comfortable, private setting of an AI interview than they might in-person. Clinicians can replay patient videos to catch nuances in mood or reactions that might be missed in real time. And if anything seems unclear, you can always follow up with the patient directly – armed with far more information than a typical first visit would yield.
Working with AsyncHealth’s AI assistants is intuitive and rewarding. You are not replaced – you are augmented. Clinicians quickly go from skeptical to enthusiastic when they see that the AI handles the mundane tasks, with the clinician remaining as the compassionate human expert. You get the best of both worlds: thorough patient evaluations and documentation done in a snap, with the freedom to focus on higher-level clinical decision-making and patient connection. It’s a partnership between clinician and technology that truly enhances care.
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