Reducing cognitive load to improve patient outcomes | Dr. Meera Rajah

Background 

Dr. Meera Rajah is a GP Partner in a busy London practice with over 11,200 registered patients. With a keen interest in AI and efficiency-driven clinical workflows, she strives to reduce the administrative burden on clinicians while enhancing patient interactions. Her experience in medical education, with her masters dissertation focusing on cognitive load, makes Dr. Rajah particularly aware of the challenges clinicians face in balancing documentation with quality patient care.

Dr Rajah also runs a functional medicine practice, functionaldoctors.co.uk. Having experience using Heidi across a range of specialities and use cases gives Dr Rajah a unique perspective on the benefit that Heidi can bring.

Challenges

Documentation overload 

As a GP Partner managing both telephone and face-to-face consultations, Dr. Rajah found documentation to be a significant drain on her time and energy. The laborious task of capturing patient information after each consultation was exhausting and took away from valuable patient time.

“As a GP we all know that taking a detailed history and really listening to the patient's concerns would mean we have to spend a significant amount of time after documenting. We often find we briefen our notes to catch up on time but in regards to the medical-legal aspect of our work, we are not doing ourselves any favours by doing this.

“Functional medicine involves in-depth history-taking, from birth history to lifestyle patterns."

Cognitive load and clinician fatigue

Dr. Rajah’s research into cognitive load highlighted a key issue in clinical practice: excessive mental effort required for multi-tasking during consultations. GPs must listen, process, document, and maintain rapport with patients, which often sadly but understandably can lead to burnout.

“For me, the extraneous load was having to input lots of different bits of data, like the letters, the pathology results... and at the same time in addition to responding to the receptionist knocking on my door, calling me on the phone etc."

Balancing efficiency with personalised care

Dr. Rajah wanted to improve efficiency without losing the personal touch in patient interactions. She struggled with how to maintain a high level of patient engagement while managing administrative tasks.

"I didn’t want to sacrifice patient rapport for efficiency. Heidi has helped me do both – be efficient without losing the personal connection with my patients."

Solution

Dr. Rajah adopted Heidi Health to streamline documentation, reduce cognitive load, and improve patient interactions. The transition was seamless, requiring minimal setup.

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Key features that made a difference:

• AI-powered transcription & structured documentation – Heidi automatically converts consultations into detailed, structured notes.
• Template customisation – Allows for standardised yet flexible documentation formats.
• Seamless integration with patient workflows – Works effectively for both telephone and in-person consultations.

Impact 

Heidi Health had a transformative impact on Dr. Rajah’s clinical practice, both in terms of efficiency and the quality of patient care.

"Using Heidi has meant that by the end of the clinic, I don’t feel as exhausted. It has significantly reduced the load on my working memory, allowing me to be more present with patients. They get a brighter, more engaged me. I’m able to listen more attentively without worrying about capturing every word manually."

Key outcomes:

• Improved consultation quality and patient interactions.
• Reduced time spent on documentation, freeing up more time for clinical duties.
• Enhanced patient interactions due to less mental exhaustion and better focus.
• Standardised and customisable documentation that aligned with Dr. Rajah’s practice’s needs.

In her own functional medicine practice 

Dr Rajah has built a Heidi template which reflects the detailed functional matrix used in her private practice. This means we can go deep into patient history and draw insights which result in transformative treatment. 

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Time savings and efficiency gains

With Heidi, Dr. Rajah has more time and energy to focus on other clinical responsibilities, while maintaining fulfilling patient-facing interactions.

"I immediately saw how accurately Heidi recorded what I was saying, which made a huge difference. I didn’t have to spend extra time writing up notes after each consultation."

"As a partner, I finish my workload quicker, which lets me focus on managing the practice, handling staff issues, and making strategic improvements."

Standardisation and team adoption

Although some colleagues were initially hesitant, Heidi’s customisable templates helped address concerns about note readability and consistency.

"The resistance to AI is a personal choice, but those who embrace efficiency will see the benefits. Heidi-generated notes can be customised to match individual preferences."

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What’s next

“With the issue of burnout being a real problem, I do believe it is important to consider AI solutions to help improve the enjoyment and retention within our profession. Also really most importantly it gives us time to spend on our families/friends and ourselves. I love that it is going to give me time to pursue my functional practice, while still being a very invested NHS GP partner”

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