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More than 440 medical professionals in Nova Scotia\u00a0have started using artificial intelligence to record patient visits since a pilot program launched last June, according to statistics shared by the Department of Health and Wellness.<\/p>\n
The program, initiated by Canada Health Infoway<\/a>, provides free one-year licences to eligible primary care clinicians across Canada for AI documentation tools, which allow health-care providers to capture patient conversations and convert them into real-time summaries for both the doctor and patient.<\/p>\n Nova Scotia has a total of 500 funded licences available in the program.<\/p>\n Shelly McNeil, president of Doctors Nova Scotia, said the association is “very supportive” of new technologies like AI scribe to enhance patient care and help provide doctors a better work-life balance.<\/p>\n Dr. Ajantha Jayabarathan, a Halifax family physician, said she usually spent five minutes or more to complete notes after seeing a patient, but the Mika AI scribe saves her that time and allows her to move on to next tasks faster.<\/p>\n Mika AI scribe is the only AI scribe approved <\/a>for use by Nova Scotia Health clinics and health-care professionals in the province.<\/p>\n \u201cI think my patients are waiting less to see me,” she said. \u201cPatients really appreciate that there’s a tool to help me as a doctor to help them and for me to be efficient.\u201d <\/p>\n Jayabarathan also finds the transcription results of the AI tool “surprisingly accurate,” though manual editing is still required before putting the notes into electronic medical records.<\/p>\n “I would say 90 per cent of what is transcribed is put within the note itself,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd because the machine as a tool is writing these things down with a lot of detail, I feel that my notes have a lot more detail than perhaps I would be including.\u201d <\/p>\n According to Nova Scotia’s policy guidance<\/a> for AI scribe, clinicians must always review and edit outputs to ensure\u00a0accuracy, and patients have the right to revoke their consent at any time.<\/p>\n ‘Relatively safe’ for now<\/p>\n Abhi Kalra, Infoway’s executive vice-president of connected care, said in an interview Tuesday that early results from a survey were “very encouraging” and no concerns have been raised.<\/p>\n
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Frank Rudzicz, a professor at Dalhousie University, has research experience in Ontario’s AI scribe technology. (Submitted by Frank Rudzicz)<\/p>\n