AccScience Publishing / AIH / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/aih.3103
PERSPECTIVE ARTICLE

Artificial intelligence scribe: A new era in medical documentation

Khalid Nawab1*
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1 Department of Internal Medicine, Penn State Holy Spirit Medical Center, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Submitted: 6 March 2024 | Accepted: 19 June 2024 | Published: 27 September 2024
© 2024 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

The high workloads involved in clinical documentation represent one of the major factors contributing to the significant escalation of clinician burnout. The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has provided new avenues for relieving this burden by automating certain tasks like clinical documentation through the generation of clinical notes from a transcript of a clinical encounter. The advances in large language models (LLMs) have led to the emergence of such startups, but they come with their own set of challenges, predominantly surrounding the concerns of documentation accuracy, completeness, and data security. These can be addressed with a multi-faceted approach which could include fine-tuning the currently available models; using domain-specific models and in-house AI systems to ensure data security; and involving smaller LLMs and clinicians in the development and implementation of such systems. We can imagine a future where these systems are deeply incorporated into electronic health records, providing not only automated clinical documentation but also improving Clinical Decision Support systems, research, and patient communication.

Keywords
Artificial intelligence
Large language models
Clinical documentation
Automation
Clinician burnout
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The author is the founder of a company that specializes in AI scribe services, which is relevant to the topic of this article. This has not influenced the content of the manuscript. No reference to the author’s company is made, but it is declared for full transparency.
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Artificial Intelligence in Health, Electronic ISSN: 3029-2387 Print ISSN: 3041-0894, Published by AccScience Publishing