Frustrated by the overwhelming paperwork that is eaten in their time with patients, some doctors in Quebec have resorted to artificial intelligence tools to rationalize the transcription of their medical notes during consultations.
Now, Santé Québec, the Crown Corporation that supervises the medical care network of the province, is planning to launch a pilot project to analyze these technologies with the objective of expanding its use in the medical care system.
Dr. Felix Lê-Pát-Hô, a family doctor based in Montreal, has been using one of the tools for a year and says that he has reduced his mental load and has improved his quality of service.
“It has a great impact on my clinical practice,” he said on the tool down.
Lê-paste-h says that the tool saves him two or three hours of paperwork daily, allowing him to see up to three more patients per day.
At this time, only applications that have obtained the official certification of Santé Québec can be used, guaranteeing data protection.
Plume AI, created by a group of Quebec doctors, is one of these approved platforms. His co -founder, the doctor of the emergency room, Dr. James you, says that 10 percent of the doctors in Quebec already use their application: around 2,000 doctors.
For lê-paste-h, the benefits speak for themselves. “You can focus your care only on the patient, and patients really appreciate it because they may feel that they have all the care of their doctor.”
“So it is really as a situation of win-win for both the patient and me.”
The Quebec government says it is launching a pilot project that involves artificial intelligence transcription tools for health professionals, with a growing number that says they reduce the time they spend filling the paperwork.
How does it work?
Plume AI is an application that doctors can download on their phones or computers.
At the beginning of the consultation, they explain to the patient what the application does and request consent before registering the exchange.
If the patient accepts, the doctor begins the recording, and the consultation continues as he would normally: the patient explains his problem, the doctor asks questions, talk about the diagnosis and the treatment plan.
“No matter what the flow of the discussion, what was the interview, what was the language, what was the patient’s accent,” said you. “Thanks to artificial intelligence, it is able to understand the context of each discussion.”
Once the consultation ends, the doctor stops the transcription, and the AI of Penacho generates a structured medical note based on the discussion. In this way, doctors do not need to take detailed notes during consultations, or write the medical note during the IT or at the end of their day, which you say that you can take a “huge” time.
Instead, they can focus on the patient in front of them. He says you can see up to six more patients per day in the emergency room thanks to technology.
“For that I studied,” he said “to talk to the patient, not complete the paperwork.”
Cybersecurity concerns
Lê-paste-Hô says that it was initially skeptical about the use of AI in its practice, concerned about the risks for the privacy of their patients.
Éric Parent, an expert in cybersecurity, shares this concern. He says that the data should be stored as locally as possible and within a controlled environment to avoid risks, and that there should be a protocol to establish who is legally responsible for the data.
He also expects the starting companies to take advantage of this technology to invest in strong security measures.
“When you cut corners with cybersecurity … we are creating a dependence on this technology, so if the system, for example, is not available, what would happen?” said. “And therefore, these systems must be built to be at the level of security or at the level of resilience, the level of quality we really need.”
Penacho’s AI stores its data locally in Quebec, and the new data is deleted automatically after 24 to 48 hours, measures that reassured Lê-Pát-Hô.
You, the co -founder of the tool, hopes to collaborate with more health professionals who could benefit from technology, such as nurses, social workers, physiotherapists and dentists.
We hope to collaborate with Santé Quebec for the pilot project to study the impacts of this technology in the field of medicine.
“I think that artificial intelligence entry into the world of health is inevitable. It must be regulated, it must be well supervised, it must have established guidelines,” he said.
“But for once, we can have access to technology in the health system that is not so behind.”
