Québec works on authorizing AI scribes

QUÉBEC CITY – Work is underway to evaluate available AI Scribe solutions for clinical and non-clinical note taking in Quebec healthcare centres, Santé Québec said in an email to The Canadian Press.

Currently, only solutions that have obtained official certification from Santé Québec, among other criteria to guarantee patient data protection, can be used in the province’s healthcare network.

Plume IA and CoeurWay are among the Quebec companies attracting more doctors to their applications.

For now, Plume IA mainly does business with family medicine groups (GMFs).

The company is currently in the process of having its application tested by speech therapists, social workers, doctors and nurses “to demonstrate that it works” and eventually obtain “a licence for an entire department, for an entire hospital,” said Plume IA co-founder Dr. James Tu (pictured).

He launched Plume IA with Dr. Jasmin Landry one year ago and says about 10 percent of Quebec’s doctors are already using their app – about 2,000 doctors.

“The feedback we’ve gotten has been really encouraging,” said Tu. “Doctors call us, they write to us, they say we’ve changed their practice, they go home much less tired, they have more time with their families. We have stories of family doctors who have postponed their retirement this year because they found that the workload had decreased and that it brought back some enjoyment to their work.”

Tu is an emergency physician and estimates that in his practice, he is able to see four to six more patients in an eight-hour shift.

The amount of time saved varies depending on the practice, but in general, healthcare professionals can save one to two hours of charting per day.

“The app is accessible and works for all specialties,” said Tu. “Those who get the most value from our app are those who have to do a lot of writing. I’m thinking in particular of social workers who have to write notes on patient demographics and psychosocial issues.”

The Plume AI app has two modes.

The first involves recording a discussion during a consultation with a patient (after obtaining their consent).

The app then transforms the discussion into a structured medical note, a step that clinicians are used to doing themselves.

The doctor can also conduct a consultation as normal and then, at the end, record themselves talking to the app to produce the same kind of structured medical note.

According to Tu, even if a patient has a strong accent or uses certain phrases in another language, the app will be able to produce a reliable medical note.

“That’s the power of artificial intelligence: it’s not necessarily a word-for-word transcription. It’s the artificial intelligence that interprets the conversation […] and is able to deduce a little more about the context,” Tu points out.

He acknowledges that occasionally, some errors may still slip into the note, and that clinicians need to be vigilant.

“I think it’s a habit that everyone has anyway, instinctively rereading the note and correcting any typos or adding information that is more visual or implicit. Then they can correct the note directly in the app. It takes a few seconds, and then they can immediately validate it and insert it into their file,” explained Tu.

For now, Plume IA is focusing solely on transcription, but its co-founder says he is confident that the technology will one day advance the accuracy and speed of diagnoses.

“The potential is almost endless, and I think it will happen,” he said.

However, Tu notes that important issues must still be addressed, including ethical questions, accountability, and the diversity of data sources.

Source: The Canadian Press