10,000 primary care providers to get free AI scribes for a year from Infoway

Canada Health Infoway has announced the selection of nine pre-qualified vendors for an AI scribe program that will cover the cost of one year’s worth of licence fees for up to 10,000 primary care physicians across the country.The nine AI scribe vendors are Aya Health Technologies, Empathia AI, Medfar, Mikata Health, Mutuo Health Solutions, Pippen AI, Scribeberry, Tali AI and WELL Health Technologies. The successful vendors are all Canadian headquartered and were among 38 companies responding to Infoway’s request for pre-qualification.U.S.-based vendors were not explicitly excluded from consideration, but one of the criteria for selection was experience in the primary care setting in Canada, said Krista Balenko, Infoway’s vice-president of enablement and procurement.Infoway anticipates a refresh of the pre-qualification process to include additional vendors at some point in the future.Read: Docnote aims to fix the unpaid work problem in primary careProgram availability, access and execution will vary by jurisdiction, so not all nine AI scribe vendors will be available for selection in every province or territory. Six of the nine pre-qualified AI scribe products are available with French-language interfaces.Eligible primary care providers, including family doctors, nurse practitioners, registered nurses in remote communities and pediatricians providing longitudinal care in the community, will be able to take advantage of the program by accessing the Canada Health Infoway website the week of June 9.Eligible providers will sign contracts with the vendor they select, but Infoway will pay vendors for active use of the scribes.Primary care providers who are already under contract with one of the nine AI scribes will also be eligible for coverage of a one-year licence fee from the time the program starts. They will simply have to “work out with the vendor what that would mean from a funding perspective,” said Balenko.According to Infoway, “vendors were selected through a rigorous process based on their ability to meet national standards and unique regional needs, support secure data sharing, meet clinical practice guidelines and align with the Shared Pan-Canadian Interoperability Roadmap.” All of the pre-qualified vendors meet privacy and security standards and Canadian data residency requirements. Also included in the evaluation were integration with commonly used EMRs and single sign-on capability.Clinicians and subject matter experts from across the country participated in the review process, which included virtual demonstrations of the products to assess their accuracy, their understanding of medical terminology, their ability to filter out background noise and how they address the risk of hallucinations.Pre-qualification by Infoway in co-operation with its regional partners frees providers from the stress and uncertainty of evaluating AI scribe products on their own and ensures that the products they select have been fully vetted.Future phases of Infoway’s AI Scribe Program “will explore scalability, deeper EMR integration and AI-assisted decision support.” For example, Infoway envisions the automatic processing of lab requisitions, prescriptions and referrals captured by SOAP notes, but has no specific timeframe for vendors to introduce this additional functionality.Infoway’s AI Scribe Program is designed to reduce administrative burden, streamline clinical workflows and give clinicians more time to focus on patient care.“It’s a really exciting program because AI scribes can positively impact the daily lives of primary care providers,” said Balenko. “They have been shown to save time, reduce administrative burden and free up hours in the evening when they could be going to their kids’ hockey or basketball games or spend time reading instead of charting.”By alleviating the pressures of documentation and administrative tasks, the program fosters a healthier work environment where clinicians can focus more on their patients and experience a more balanced and fulfilling professional life.Providers with questions about the program are invited to email ai.scribe@infoway-inforoute.ca or sign up for program updates here.

10,000 primary care providers to get free AI scribes for a year from Infoway

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