A new technology is being used by many physicians at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California to take notes for them during patient visits, and a newly published analysis suggests both patients and doctors appreciate it.
The generative artificial intelligence (AI) scribe listens to the medical visit conversation and produces a written draft summary for the doctor, who can edit the summary before adding it to the medical record.
The AI scribe is meant to free doctors from focusing on the computer keyboard while with patients and reduce the amount of time they spend documenting patient care, particularly outside work hours. Metrics and observations from the first year of use were reported in an article in NEJM Catalyst.
The software does not make decisions or recommendations to the doctor about patient care, explained co-author Vincent Liu, MD, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, and The Permanente Medical Group’s (TPMG) chief data officer, but helps to reduce the mental burden of documentation and improves the doctor-patient encounter.
Between October 2023 and December 2024, the tool was used by 7,260 physicians to assist in about 2.5 million patient encounters. Some doctors were particularly heavy users — nearly 3,500 physicians each used AI scribes in at least 100 patient encounters.
AI scribe is a time saver
The analysis tallied a total of nearly 16,000 hours in documentation time saved among all doctors in 15 months.
“We have an opportunity and obligation to take advantage of innovative AI that improves patient care and augments our physicians’ capabilities, while supporting their wellness,” said analysis co-author Kristine Lee, MD, TPMG associate executive director of virtual medicine and technology. “Our data confirms that this technology is helping us achieve these goals.”
Scribe users are of all ages, experience levels, and medical specialties. They are more likely to be in mental health, emergency medicine, primary care, allergy, or cardiology. Physicians least likely to use the scribe are in infectious disease, obstetrics/gynecology, and urology.
“We found the highest adoption rates in departments that typically suffer from the highest levels of documentation and burnout,” said lead author Aaron Tierney, PhD, a DOR staff scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. “Time savings among frequent users substantially surpassed the time savings of those who used the technology infrequently or not at all.”
Doctors, patients surveyed
In a survey completed by 102 physicians, two-thirds said they use the technology 5 or more days per week, while 8% had never used it. A majority said they used it in every one of their in-person visits. They were somewhat less likely to use the scribe in telemedicine visits.
Survey respondents overwhelmingly (84%) said AI scribes had a positive impact on their visit interactions, citing reduced mental workload and that the AI scribe helped them recall details of conversations with patients.
Patients were also surveyed, and 118 responded.
- About half (47%) thought their doctor spent less time looking at the computer screen.
- Two-thirds said they were comfortable with the technology being used, 26% were neutral, and 8% said they had some level of discomfort with it.
“We have now shown that this technology alleviates workloads for doctors,” Dr. Liu said. “Both doctors and patients highly value face-to-face contact during a visit, and the AI scribe supports that.”
