ROCHESTER, N.Y. – If you’ve got a doctor’s appointment scheduled soon, you may be asked if you’ll allow the doctor to use “digital scribing” to keep notes.  The technology listens in the background to the conversation and then uses A.I. to craft your medical record.

UR Medicine is already using it, and Rochester Regional is launching it this week.

Both health systems were moving in the digital direction before but the pandemic pushed things along quicker.  “In every crisis, there really is a silver lining and there are things that come out of through just the brute determination of human-creativity and human-will right and technology really is one of those big changes,” says Dr. Robert Mayo, the Chief Medical Officer at Rochester Regional Health

Dr. Michael Apostolakos, Chief Medical Officer at Strong and Highland Hospital agrees, “we have to look at new ways to efficiently take care of patients, can we use virtual sitters, can we use virtual nurses can we do more things digitally that saves people time, makes them more efficient and be able to take care of as many or more patients with less physical resources and more virtual resources,” he tells News10NBC. 

One new thing most of us will notice is the use of what’s called ambient digital scribing. “When we went live with electronic medical records, people said, “I don’t see the doctors face” and the doctors would say, “I’m so stuck in the computer and how do we change that” so, now hopefully we’ll be able to come out of the other side on that,” Dr. Mayo says.

If a patient agrees, the technology can be used during routine medical appointments. It listens for key words in a conversation between doctor and patient, “it can organize that in a way that makes sense in a medical record, the provider then needs to edit that material and make sure it’s accurate but it’s very promising technology,” says Dr. Mayo.

Patients can opt-out if they choose but the health systems are hoping the technology will actually better allow face-to-face visits because doctors will be less worried about typing and able to better listen to patients. 

The technology does not offer real-time input or insight to the visit. It just provides a summary of the medical issues and treatment described and the doctor must still review and sign off on the record.

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