How to get the benefits and keep patient information safe
AI has shown up in clinics faster than almost any technology we can remember. Scribes are taking notes during visits. Staff are using AI tools to draft referral letters and tidy up emails. A lot of it is useful, and anything that hands time back to patient care gets our vote.
There’s one catch, and it’s a big one. When you type something into a public AI tool, you don’t control where it goes. It may be stored, and it may be used to train the tool. So a quick “summarize this for me” with a patient’s name and diagnosis in it can turn into a privacy breach without anyone meaning any harm.
It has already happened close to home. In Ontario, an AI note-taking tool that a hospital hadn’t approved joined a virtual medical meeting and exposed patient information. It’s an easy mistake to make when a tool is that convenient, which is why privacy commissioners in Ontario and B.C. both put out guidance on AI scribes this year.
You don’t have to avoid AI. You just need a few house rules.
- Keep patient information out of any AI tool your clinic hasn’t approved. If you wouldn’t post it on a public website, don’t paste it into a free AI tool.
- Ask questions before you sign up for a scribe. Find out where the data is stored, how long it’s kept, and whether it’s used for anything other than your notes.
- Read what the AI writes before it goes in the chart. These tools make things up now and then, and they sound very sure of themselves when they do. In Ontario, the CPSO is clear that the physician is still responsible for the record.
If your team has started using something and you’re not sure about it, call your Client Services Representative. We’re happy to look at it with you.