In the fall of 2024, artificial intelligence-powered ambient scribe technology was rolled out across the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) health system, allowing otolaryngologists and other clinicians to transcribe conversations with patients into text with just a click of a button.
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July 2025Since then, Nicole Jiam, MD, an otologist and assistant professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at UCSF, has found that the innovation has allowed her to engage more fully with her patients, with more eye-to-eye interaction, as opposed to being turned to a computer monitor, typing.
It has also reduced the time she has had to work on documentation at home. She would sometimes need to work on notes until past 11 p.m. Now this at-home time doesn’t typically extend past 7 or 8 p.m., she said.
“I would say, a lot less pajama time,” Dr. Jiam said.
Nonetheless, she needs to be sure to review all the notes herself, lest the AI insert a mistake into the note, which is ultimately the responsibility of the physician, and there is typically at least a little editing needed, she said. And she still writes her own assessment and plan, feeling it is the best way to capture the nuances of what can be a complex clinical picture, she said.
Benefits of Ambient Scribes
As ambient scribes are assessed and adopted at an astounding pace in ENT departments and healthcare systems in the U.S. and around the world, many doctors are finding them to be a liberating breakthrough that has substantially reduced the time they need to spend in the electronic health record—where no physician wants to be — and instead have more fulfilling, and maybe even more clinically effective, encounters with the patients for whom they care. But the systems come with limitations, and, reportedly, price tags between about $200 and $600 a month per physician. So, while the trend is moving swiftly toward ambient scribes, the choice is a consequential one for health systems.
“Anything that can make our work more efficient and let us focus on patient care, which is what brings us joy, is going to be really beneficial for physicians—and ultimately also patients, since the clinicians, when they’re less burned out, are more likely to provide better care,” said Anaïs Rameau, MD, associate professor and director of new technologies at the department of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. “But this also comes with a cost.” Her center has been trying out the ambient scribe system Dragon Ambient Experience (DAX).
Anything that can make our work more efficient and let us focus on patient care, which is what brings us joy, is going to be really beneficial for physicians—and ultimately also patients, since the clinicians, when they’re less burned out, are more likely to provide better care. —Anaïs Rameau, MD
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