In the summer of 2023, Dr. Rosemary Lall, a family physician at a busy medical clinic in Scarborough, reached a critical juncture. After almost thirty years in her profession, Lall felt overwhelmed by the mounting paperwork related to patient care, which was encroaching upon her precious family time.
“I lost all my joy in my work,” Lall confided to Global News. “I began to dread coming into work each day.”
Her sense of dread stemmed not from patient interactions but from the aftermath — the mandatory record-keeping expected of frontline healthcare workers in Ontario’s electronic medical records system. Physicians like Lall were burdened with updating patient charts, filling out forms, issuing sick notes, and making specialist referrals.
This administrative load consumed up to two hours of her day, contributing to the estimated 19 hours per week that family doctors spend on administrative tasks, including four hours on patient-related paperwork, according to the Ontario Medical Association.
Faced with this predicament, Lall contemplated quitting or finding a solution. The solution, she found, lay in new artificial intelligence note-taking apps designed to streamline doctor’s notes and alleviate the paperwork burden.
One such program, AI Scribe, managed by OntarioMD, the digital technology arm of the Ontario Medical Association, offers doctors various tools to assist with note-taking during patient visits.
During appointments, with patient consent, physicians engage in routine conversations while verbally expressing their thoughts during physical examinations. The AI Scribe software generates a real-time transcript of the appointment.
The true benefit emerges post-appointment when AI Scribe compiles the information into a SOAP note, a standard requirement for family physicians. SOAP stands for subjective, objective, assessment, and plan, representing different components of medical notes.
AI technology categorizes the information into these sections, allowing Lall to move on to other patients while the SOAP note is created in the background. Should she find discrepancies, Lall can request the AI model to adjust the information.
Despite some imperfections, Lall believes AI Scribe should become the standard for all doctors, reducing cognitive load and improving efficiency.
Impressed by the technology, the Ford government initiated a pilot program allowing 150 family physicians to use AI Scribe. Deputy Premier Sylvia Jones highlighted promising early signs but emphasized cautious implementation.
However, concerns linger regarding data privacy and potential misuse. Liberal health critic Dr. Adil Shamji stressed the need for proper execution to ensure patient confidentiality and accuracy. Ontario NDP’s health critic France Gélinas emphasized careful management to maintain trust between providers and patients.
For Lall, AI notetaking software marked a significant change in her practice. Last Christmas was the first celebration uninterrupted by the need to update patient notes.
“This has changed things for me,” Lall remarked. “It’s brought me real happiness. I will never go back.”
Source: globalnews.ca
