Pediatricians Are Burnt Out. AI Can Change That.

The challenge

Pediatric practice demands much more than clinical expertise. Having spent the first nine years of my career as a practicing pediatrician, I know first-hand that we don't just diagnose and treat — we guide growth, counsel entire families and coordinate care with educators and coaches. Yet, by 2024, pediatricians reported working 55–60+ hours per week, with less than half of that time spent in face-to-face patient care. The rest is absorbed by behind-the-scenes work: inbox management, EHR documentation, phone calls, prior authorizations and an endless flow of administrative forms. 

Documentation-heavy workloads

On any given day, a pediatrician completes sports clearances, camp and school forms, medication administration plans, and IEP/504 coordination documents—each requiring detailed review, signatures and follow-up communication with families or schools. The pediatric mental-health crisis adds yet another layer of strain, as pediatricians struggle to support these patients in non-psychiatric environments without adequate resources while submitting endless documentation for referrals and support. 

Developmental care coordination

Pediatricians are also increasingly serving as care coordinators for children with autism and other developmental and learning conditions, navigating a web of therapists, school-based services and insurance requirements. Securing access to early-intervention or behavioral therapies often involves repeated documentation, appeals and follow-up work that is both mission-critical and unreimbursed. 

Vaccine complexity

Layered on top is the time and toll of vaccine counseling and management. Conversations with parents struggling with confusion and concern over vaccines often stretch well beyond scheduled visit times, requiring patience, empathy and evidence-based reassurance—sometimes across multiple encounters. Additionally, pediatricians spend substantial time creating catch-up schedules for unvaccinated or under-vaccinated children and custom schedules for those with chronic conditions or socio-genetic risk factors that modify vaccine timing or contraindications. Each scenario requires careful reference to CDC and AAP guidelines, meticulous documentation and follow-up tracking—all under intense time pressure. 

AI as the solution

AI-powered technology offers an opportunity to redesign—rather than simply digitize—these burdensome workflows. Tasks that once required extensive manual effort—chart reviews, documentation, data lookup and schedule creation—can now be automated, streamlined or intelligently augmented.  

One example lies in the vaccine protocol workflow. Determining appropriate vaccination schedules for undervaccinated or unvaccinated patients often forces clinicians to cross-reference multiple sources—CDC tables, AAP recommendations and disease-specific contraindications—to ensure age-appropriate and accelerated dosing. This process can take up to 20 minutes per patient; an unplanned time sink that disrupts clinic flow and leaves pediatricians scrambling to catch up on their schedule as they race from room to room.

To address this, WWT developed the Pediatric Vaccine Assistant as a lab in our Advanced AI Proving Ground  (AIPG). As an AI-powered tool designed to automate and streamline vaccine scheduling, the Assistant leverages Generative AI to rapidly create both routine and individualized catch-up vaccination protocols for pediatric patients, drawing from CDC and AAP guidance.

I've talked about the tool's capabilities with some of my former colleagues, and they would absolutely welcome something that can give them back more time with their patients.

I left patient care years ago on a quest to find technologies that improve the physician experience. The physician experience was declining due to the burdensome administrative workflows doctors were suddenly facing with the introduction of the EHR. The Pediatric Vaccine Assistant is precisely the kind of technology that gives physicians time back in their busy days, improving work-life balance and job satisfaction.  

The future

Using WWT's AIPG, we were able to quickly and cost-effectively design, train and deploy this AI tool that can deliver measurable ROI for pediatricians and the healthcare systems that employ them. The AIPG provides access to the world's leading AI technologies and accelerates our clients' ability to learn about, test, train and implement AI solutions.  This use case is just the tip of the iceberg—let's leverage the variety of resources available to us in the AIPG together to develop practical AI solutions to chip away at the countless workflow pain points clinicians face across specialties.