The Assault on the Consultation
"Ambient listening" giving eye contact back to the doctor.
After decades in which the computer "stole" the physician's attention during the consultation, with eyes fixed on the screen typing the record instead of looking at the patient, this chapter presents ambient listening as an attempt to reverse that assault. Systems that listen to the visit and automatically generate the clinical record promise to give the physician back the eye contact and presence that the electronic-record era had hijacked, returning technology to the role of silent assistant rather than obstacle between doctor and patient.