Choosing the Right AI Scribe for your Practice

The rise of generative AI in healthcare has brought AI scribes to the forefront of daily medical practice. With so many options available, it can be challenging to determine which AI scribe is the right fit for your needs. Rather than relying solely on recommendations or word of mouth, I have created a quick decision matrix to help you evaluate what works best for your practice.

Each of these factors can be scored from 1-5 (with a higher score indicating a better performance). Let's take a deeper look at what each of these factors indicate.

Intuitiveness

How long does it take to onboard a new clinician? How intuitive is the interface from set up to usage? A user friendly interface might have a quick tutorial and reduces disruptions in your workflow.

Medical Accuracy

A medical AI scribe will not be useful if it makes errors in transcribing medical language. Medical Term Recall Rate (MTR) is a metric used to see how well a system captures important medical terms when it converts spoken language (like a doctor talking) into text.

Time Spent

How well does the AI scribe work in real time to transcribe the patient encounter? Or does it transcribe it after the conversation has ended? How long does it take to generate the note? Look for post-encounter turn around time when comparing different tools.

Number of Edits

How many errors are present in the AI generated note that require edits? Look for accuracy related to your area of practice, spellings of medications, diagnoses rather than tone of the note.

Feedback Based Learning

Most AI scribes allow the user to provide feedback regarding the structure of the clinical note, tone, the sections to be included, specific statements to be added to a note, etc. Compare how often this feedback needs to be provided and the overall improvement in the note quality.

Coding/ Billing Assistance

Accurate medical coding may be a key component of your documentation and subsequent billing. Compare tools for accuracy in adding medical codes.

Specialty Specific Configuration

Can the AI scribe be trained to adjust to different terminologies and workflows based on your specialty? If you are a hospital or clinic with multiple specialties, how well can it be adjusted to all the different disciplines?

Multi-lingual Support

Does the AI scribe support multiple languages or dialects relevant to your practice? Evaluate number of supported languages and accuracy across different languages

Other important factors to consider are cost and return on investment (ROI), data privacy and security, and EMR compatibility. However, given the competitive and highly regulated nature of the healthcare industry, cost and security may not always be the deciding factors in choosing a tool. Instead, compatibility with a specific EMR system often plays a more significant role, as it limits the number of available options. You may find yourself selecting a tool based on existing collaborations or integration capabilities rather than the tool's actual utility or features.

In conclusion, it is evident that AI scribes have the potential to improve documentation workflows and reduce clinician burnout - but finding the best fit requires a careful assessment of how each tool aligns with your practice's goals and operational requirements.