AI Scribes Shape Health Care Delivery

Most physicians are interested in AI in healthcare, but only 38% use it in their practices.
AI scribe programs significantly decrease electronic health record workload.
High physician burnout rates increase the interest in AI tools.
Physicians are cautious due to the absence of necessary oversight and a limited regulatory framework.
Primary care must be at the forefront as AI changes healthcare delivery.

Aim to reduce administrative burden, but implementation varies.
Most tools feature customizable note templates.
Offer medical code extraction (identifying diagnoses, billable procedures, and suggesting additional codes).

Few studies offer direct comparative analytics of AI scribe products.
Commentary highlights immense promise but remains wary of risks like technical limitations and ethical concerns.
Concerns include chart integrity degradation, biases, and "model collapse" (future AIs trained on past data, leading to performance decline).
These critiques are valid but underestimate the dynamic nature of technology and healthcare's capacity to refine the tools.

Explored through peer forums and vendor marketplace sites.
Platforms with insufficient online presence or in beta testing (e.g., Doximity GPT) were eliminated.
Eight companies were identified for review.
Services include ambient listening, note generation (history of present illness, review of systems, physical examination, assessment and planning), diagnosis coding, and order recommendations.
Most cited concerns relate to accuracy.
Some AI scribe services claim 90% to 99% accuracy, but users report different experiences.
AI hallucination (false information produced by a generative AI model) ranges from misleading to outright fabrication.
Clinicians rely on accurate documentation for patient care and protection against litigation.
Some users found that the scribe did not save documentation time due to the need to review and edit AI-generated notes.

AI scribe services are promising for electronic health record interoperability and improved care delivery.
Appropriate AI oversight is needed.
Regulation and policies should promote patient safety and information security.
The risk of biases perpetuated by AI algorithms and the threat of data breaches must be mitigated through ethical and accountable governance.
The trustworthiness and acceptance of AI remains uncertain.

Platform	Cost per month*	Pros	Cons
DeepScribe	Not published	Proofread by human, notes require minimal editing, EHR integration	No free trial, pulls in irrelevant information, lack of coding help
Nabla	$119	Live transcription, asynchronous care documentation, does not store user data	Struggles to filter out content, minimal integration
Freed	$99	User friendly, adapts future notes to user feedback	No EHR integration, concerns with accuracy transcription
Abridge	$99 / $249	Integrated Epic EHR integration, asynchronous care documentation	No free trial, difficult to use at small institutions, suboptimal order entry
Heidi	$69	Multidisciplinary team collaboration, multilingual transcription	No mobile application, concerns with transcription accuracy
Nuance	$600	Deep integration and high accuracy, automatically documents encounters	Difficult to use at small institutions, delayed note generation
Suki	$399	Integrated, user friendly, AI assistant accessed through voice command	No free trial, suboptimal ambient mode documentation
Lyrebird Health	$89	Quick note generation, customizable templates and adaptive note writing	Integration challenges

*Many companies offer annual discounts of 20%.