The rapid growth of telehealth has transformed the way we access medical care. With options like phone consultations, virtual doctor visits, and phone prescriptions becoming mainstream, healthcare providers are increasingly exploring tools to make patient interactions smoother and more efficient. Among the tools gaining popularity are AI-powered scribes — designed to assist healthcare professionals with documenting patient encounters. But the question remains: can AI scribes replace human scribes in telehealth? Or is there a balance to be struck between the two?
This article dives into the pros and cons of AI and human scribes in the context of telehealth to help healthcare providers and patients understand their roles in modern medicine.
The Role of Scribes in Telehealth
Before we compare AI and human scribes, let’s clarify their purpose in the telehealth setting. Scribes assist healthcare providers by documenting patient conversations, clinical notes, and treatment plans in real-time. This allows doctors to focus on engaging with their patients instead of being buried under documentation.
With telehealth relying heavily on remote consultations — like phone doctor appointments and phone prescriptions — the need for accurate and efficient documentation is more important than ever.
AI Scribes in Telehealth
AI-powered scribes, like those integrated into telehealth platforms, use natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to automatically transcribe and summarize patient interactions. These tools promise convenience and efficiency, but they also have limitations.
Advantages of AI Scribes:
- Efficiency: AI scribes operate at lightning speed, transcribing conversations in real-time with minimal delays.
- Cost-effective: After the initial setup, AI scribes can significantly reduce costs associated with paying human scribes.
- Availability: AI tools are always accessible, making it easier to handle high telehealth appointment volumes.
- Evolving Technology: Some advanced tools can pull structured data, suggest diagnoses, and integrate seamlessly with electronic health records (EHR).
Drawbacks of AI Scribes:
- Contextual Errors: While AI has come a long way, it still struggles to fully grasp medical nuances. For example, an AI may misinterpret a complex medical term or fail to pick up on a subtle tone of concern in a patient’s voice during a phone doctor appointment.
- Lack of Empathy: AI cannot infer emotional undertones, which can be critical during sensitive appointments.
- Privacy Concerns: Patients may feel uneasy knowing their conversation is being transcribed by a machine that stores data in the cloud.
- Reliability: Though improving, AI systems are not immune to errors or technical glitches.
Human Scribes in Telehealth
Human scribes are trained professionals who assist doctors by listening and recording patient data during consultations, often in real-time. While it’s clear they don’t have the speed or scalability of AI, human scribes bring their own unique strengths to the table.
Advantages of Human Scribes:
- Medical Understanding: Skilled human scribes are trained in medical terminology, ensuring accurate documentation, even for complex terms or diagnoses.
- Contextual Accuracy: Humans understand nuance, tone, and context better than AI. This is vital when dealing with emotional patients or complex medical histories.
- Combined Responsibility: Physicians often describe their scribes as ‘feedback partners,’ offering clarification on unclear details while documenting accurately.
- Patient Trust: Many patients trust a human over a machine when it comes to the sensitive details shared in a doctor-patient conversation.
Drawbacks of Human Scribes:
- Cost: Hiring and training human scribes can be expensive for telehealth providers.
- Availability: Human scribes may not always be available for after-hours or high-volume telehealth workloads.
- Time-lag in Real-timeScripting: Unlike automation scripting delays may occur here.
Finding Balance in a Hybrid Model
Rather than asking, “Which is better?” the better question might be, “How do we combine both effectively?” Many telehealth providers are adopting hybrid models where AI scribes handle basic documentation during consultations, and human scribes review or refine the notes for completeness and accuracy.
This approach combines the speed of AI with the contextual intelligence of humans, ensuring high-quality documentation without overburdening healthcare budgets.
Looking Ahead
The rise of telehealth introduces unique challenges for documentation, whether it’s for a video conference, a phone doctor consultation, or recording notes for phone prescriptions. AI scribes are a promising innovation that brings speed and affordability, while human scribes ensure context and trust.