[Use of artificial intelligence for next-gen anamnesis and communication in orthopedics & trauma surgery : From...

Against the backdrop of increasing patient volumes, rising case complexity, and physicians' limited time, AI-driven systems for anamnesis, triage, and documentation offer substantial potential for efficiency gains in medical history taking and clinical communication. Their development spans from rule-based decision trees to machine learning and large language model (LLM) dialogues, and further to "ambient" documentation that records the physician-patient interaction, autonomously extracts relevant information, and generates structured notes. Applications can be categorized by level of interaction (patient-, physician-, or system-facing) and by stage of care (before, during, and after the visit).

In routine practice, there is an evident shift away from generic symptom checkers-focused on safety but limited in diagnostic accuracy-toward domain-specific, curated intake and triage tools that demonstrate higher process relevance in elective care. The most immediate benefits currently arise from ambient documentation assistants: reduced typing workload, shorter post-visit processing times, and more complete, structured notes-always subject to final physician review and responsibility. Responsible deployment requires adherence to regulatory frameworks and compliance with MDR and the EU AI Act. A locally piloted example is "OrthoCopilot," an adaptive, offline intake system generating structured summaries for physicians' preparation.

Stepwise introduction of AI-based technologies should be guided by measurable performance indicators (consultation time, workload, completeness, correction effort, billing quality), comply with prevailing regulations, enable early efficiency gains, support institutions in building internal expertise, and prepare the ground for the transition toward more advanced multimodal AI models.