Made-in-Canada AI system is assisting physicians across the country

“Finally, technology that works for me and not me for it!” is Dr Devan Reddy’s first thought when asked about Tali, an AI Assistant focused on helping physicians with their administrative tasks and documentation.

It has improved the quality of his notes and his patient visits, says the Prince George, BC physician. “And capturing my patients’ words as they intended them and not as how I interpreted them is a game changer for the art of history taking.”

Tali presents a transformative solution for healthcare professionals, significantly streamlining administrative tasks and documentation.

With its innovative Ambient Scribe feature, this AI Assistant actively listens to physician-patient conversations, seamlessly generating clinical notes tailored to the user’s preferences. The provider can review the generated note, edit it then and there, and copy it into their EMR. The same approach can generate any other clinical document as well, be it a consult note, letters, and so on.

“We know healthcare providers are struggling, and we wanted to help,” said Katherine Tattum, Tali’s chief operating officer. “Technology can take on a lot of the important, but rote, administrative tasks. It is vital that the human remain in control: Tali will only draft the document, the person driving it will always have the opportunity to edit, refine and improve what is written.”

Tali has more than Ambient Scribe. Leveraging cutting-edge speech recognition and natural language processing (NLP) technologies, Tali’s Medical Dictation demonstrates remarkable accuracy in recognizing medical vocabulary and terms, thereby aiding clinicians in the process of dictating comprehensive notes.

Tali’s Medical Search feature provides quick, voice-enabled searching of evidence-based sources for drug and medical inquiries, while the EHR Assistant facilitates efficient voice-activated actions within Oscar Pro, such as creating reminders or opening forms.

The response from Tali’s users has been extraordinary, according to Mahshid Yassaei, CEO and co-founder of Tali. “We are thrilled to witness the positive impact Tali has on physicians’ daily lives, allowing them to connect with their patients and purpose,” Yassaei shares.

Tali started as a voice-enabled COVID Q&A chatbot for healthcare professionals early in the pandemic. While the need for that solution was short-lived, it convinced Yassaei and her co-founder, Hesam Dadafarin, that their speech recognition technology could handle the terminology used in healthcare.

The Toronto-based pair have built up the company with the long-term goal of taking on all administrative work associated with a patient’s visit.

Today, physicians are leveraging Tali for various tasks, including drafting notes, letters, and other clinical documents as well as using voice commands in their EMR. The benefits derived from Tali are substantial – physicians can dedicate more attention to their patients while experiencing faster note generation, all without sitting at the computer.

“Tali creates more trust between me and my patients,” because she is able to be more present and focused, reported Dr. Madhu Azad, lead physician at Superior FHO in Thunder Bay, Ontario. “I would also say it currently saves me around one hour and 20 minutes a day. I no longer work outside of my clinic. Before, if I finished at 4 pm, I would be working until 5:30. Now, I leave by 4:15.”

Dr. Keith Thompson of London, Ont., concurred. He appreciates the technology for granting him additional time to optimize compassionate care and improve patient interactions.

With Tali, “sometimes the interview ends early enough for me to ask patients about their family, their hobbies or their recent travel adventures,” commented Dr. Thompson.

Tali sets itself apart from competitors through several distinctive features. Firstly, its speech recognition system is trained on a diverse range of Canadian accents, ensuring accurate transcription. It boasts French speech recognition trained on Canadian speakers, catering to francophone healthcare professionals.

Additionally, the generated notes are instantly accessible, eliminating the need for waiting. Tali is compatible with any computer – it works on both Mac and Windows operating systems, and is available as a Chrome extension for web-based EMRs – and seamlessly integrates with various EMR systems.

The Tali team offers free onboarding sessions to get users started, with a dedicated Customer Success team available throughout their journey.

EMR vendors are keenly aware of the possibilities presented by Tali’s innovative AI solution. In particular, WELL Health recognized the potential early on and became an investor in Tali in 2021. In fact, they have taken their partnership a step further by white labelling Tali’s technology as the foundation of their own offering, WELL AI Voice.

Any clinic using one of WELL’s EMRs (OSCAR Pro, Profile EMR or Cerebrum) can enable WELL AI Voice within their practice.

The advent of technologies such as Tali is already demonstrating a transformative impact on the medical field, reshaping the way physicians practice by alleviating the burden of administrative tasks and documentation that have long plagued healthcare professionals and contributed to physician burnout.

As these technologies continue to advance and become more sophisticated, they hold the potential to address an even broader range of administrative responsibilities.