Evaluating the Effectiveness of an AI-Powered Physician Assistant in Improving Patients' and Physicians' Satisfaction in Anaesthesiology Clinics

Summary

This trial aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of an AI-Powered Physician Assistant in improving patients' satisfaction with the quality of care. It also aims to evaluate physicians' satisfaction with the integration of a Physician Assistant into their clinical workflows. The primary research question is

A. What is the effect of an AI-powered Physician Assistant on patients' satisfaction with their quality of care compared to the standard care?

The secondary questions are as follows:

B1. How satisfied are physicians with integrating an AI-powered physician assistant into their daily clinical workflows?

B2. Which factors are significantly associated with patient satisfaction regarding the AI-Powered Physician Assistant?

B3. Is there a statistically significant difference in mean consultation time per patient between those receiving AI-assisted care and those receiving only standard of careonly ?

Participants will be enrolled from pre-operative outpatient clinics, including patients attending clinic for anaesthetic clearance prior to surgery and consultant anaesthetists providing care.

Patients will serve as the unit of randomization and will be assigned to one of two study arms on each clinic day. On each clinic day, the first 8 eligible patients presenting for consultation will be randomly assigned to the intervention group or the control group in a 1:1 ratio. Intervention patients will proceed to a dedicated waiting room for structured digital intake via an AI platform (demographics, symptoms, history, clinical data) and receive AI-assisted care. Control group patients will undergo routine standard care protocols. The consultant physician will evaluate both arms during each clinic session, reviewing physician assistant-generated patient summaries and charts for patients in both the intervention and control groups.

Each patient will be asked to fill out the survey at the end of the consultation with the physician. The consultants will be requested to fill out a survey at the end of the day.

Conditions

• Quality of Care
• Patient Satisfaction
• Physician Satisfaction

Interventions

OTHER

AI-Powered Physicians' Assistant

The study participant allocated to the intervention arm will interact with the AI-physician assistant application before they consult with the physician. The application will collect medical history of the patient. This will then be followed by an AI-generated clinical summary, which their physicians will receive before the consultation begins. Physicians will review this summary and ask further questions of patients if required. Any additions and changes in the patient's history will also be made. Physicians will subsequently conduct a physical examination of the patient. After this, the physician will be able to view AI- and guideline-based suggestions for the patient's assessment and pre-operative management. The recommendations can be selected, modified, or not used as per the physician's expertise. All additions within the application can be either typed manually or verbalised via an AI-assisted scribe within the application.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Aga Khan University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Dileep Kumar · Aga Khan University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2026-08-30

Primary Completion

2026-10-30

Completion

2026-10-30

Countries

• Pakistan

Study Locations