by June Kaminski, RN MSN PhD(c)
Editor in Chief
CJNI was initiated by June Kaminski in 2006 when she was President-Elect of CNIA. In 2012, June was honoured to receive the CASN and Canada Health Infoway’s inaugural Nursing Faculty E-Health Award 2012 in Ottawa Canada. She offers the Nursing Informatics Learning Centre with accredited CEU informatics courses.
Citation: Kaminski, J. (2025). Editorial. AI Scribes in Canadian health care: Easing documentation burden, enhancing care. Canadian Journal of Nursing Informatics, 20(1). https://cjni.net/journal/?p=14276
As health care systems across Canada face mounting pressures—from staffing shortages to rising patient complexity—clinicians are increasingly turning to digital tools that can support both care quality and provider well-being. One emerging solution is the AI Scribe, an artificial intelligence (AI) powered tool designed to reduce the burden of documentation in clinical practice.
For nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians, and interprofessional teams, AI Scribes represent more than just a technological convenience—they offer a potential shift in how health professionals engage with patients and manage administrative demands.
An AI Scribe is a software program that uses speech recognition and natural language processing (NLP) to transcribe and summarize conversations between clinicians and patients. These tools generate clinical notes—such as progress notes, assessments, and care plans—based on real-time or recorded dialogue. Once reviewed and approved, these notes can be integrated into the patient’s electronic medical record (EMR) or electronic health record (EHR).
This technology allows clinicians to focus on the patient rather than the keyboard, potentially improving both the experience of care and the accuracy of documentation.
Growing Use in Canadian Health Care
While AI Scribes are more common in the United States, their adoption is growing in Canada—particularly in primary care, emergency departments, and virtual care settings.
AI Scribes are particularly useful in virtual care, a model of service delivery increasingly used by nurse practitioners, mental health nurses, and community health teams. During a telehealth appointment, the AI tool listens in, and drafts notes in real time, allowing the clinician to maintain eye contact and rapport without distraction.
AI Scribes are so important, that Canada Health Infoway (CHI) has launched a program to support their uptake by Canadian providers in June 2025. “Our AI Scribe Program is a national initiative that will fund one-year licenses for AI scribes to up to 10,000 eligible primary care clinicians, providing early adopters with access to tools that help improve documentation processes and streamline workflows” (Canada Health Infoway, 2025a).
Before opening the call to health professionals, CHI conducted a rigorous evaluation of potential vendors. They finalized the list of pre-qualified vendors they support for this funded initiative, which includes several Canadian-based companies. This list includes:
- Autochart.ai (Aya Health Technologies)
- Empathia AI
- CareWay (MEDFAR)
- Mikata Health
- Mutuo Health Solutions
- Pippen AI
- ScribeBerry
- Tali AI
- WELL Health Technologies
Evaluation criteria for these vendors focused on critical characteristics including “privacy, cybersecurity, EMR integration, and clinical usability” (Canada Health Infoway, 2025b, para. 5).
Watch this brief (4 minutes) video by Canada Health Infoway about this AI Scribe Program initiative.
AI Scribe: More Time for Patient Care
Benefits for Health Care Professionals
Reduced Documentation Time: AI Scribes can help decrease the hours spent charting after shifts, easing the burden of documentation. Temporal demand is reduced “…from 3.4 to 1.8, suggesting better management of time pressures” (Sasseville et al., 2024, p. 22).
Less Cognitive Load: AI Scribes apparently reduce cognitive load of the user, reduced physical strain and effort, improved frustration levels, and better performance ratings. “Performance ratings improved significantly with the AI Scribe, increasing from 2.9 to 4.1, highlighting enhanced efficiency and task outcomes” (Sasseville et al., 2024, p. 22).
Improved Focus on Patients: Less screen time allows for more presence during patient interactions. Clinicians do not need to continually look at their screens and can pay full attention to the patient they are talking to.
Consistent, Structured Notes: AI-generated notes may reduce omissions and support continuity across providers.
Enhanced Documentation Quality: Some AI Scribe users have found that the quality of their documentation has significantly improved. “Clinicians noted that the notes generated by AI scribes were more accurate and detailed than the notes they created manually” (Amplify Care, 2025, para. 8).
Ethical, Legal, and Practical Considerations
While AI Scribes offer promise, several critical concerns remain, particularly in the Canadian context:
Privacy and Confidentiality: AI Scribes must comply with Canadian privacy laws, such as the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) (Privacy Commissioner of Canada, 2021) as well as provincial legislation. Any tool capturing personal health information must have strong safeguards and data residency in Canada or within a jurisdiction with adequate protections. This includes obtaining patient consent before recording a care session.
Accuracy and Clinical Judgment: AI is not infallible. Nurses and other health professionals must still review and edit notes to ensure they reflect accurate clinical reasoning, especially in complex or nuanced situations.
Equity and Access: Implementation costs and digital infrastructure may create disparities between urban and rural or well-funded and under-resourced settings.
Looking Ahead: Nursing Voices in Innovation
As AI Scribes become more sophisticated, healthcare and nursing leadership is needed to shape how these tools are implemented. Providers should ideally be involved in the design, evaluation, and governance of digital tools to ensure they meet ethical standards, reflect nursing and professional values, and serve diverse patient populations equitably.
Digital innovation must never come at the expense of relational practice, cultural safety, or clinical autonomy. When thoughtfully integrated, AI Scribes have the potential to support, not replace, person-centered care.
References
Amplify Care. (2025). How AI Scribes are reducing administrative burden in primary care. https://www.ehealthce.ca/resource/how-ai-scribes-are-reducing-administrative-burden-in-primary-care/
Canada Health Infoway. (2025a). AI Scribe Program: Streamlining documentation and reducing administrative burden for primary care clinicians. https://www.infoway-inforoute.ca/en/featured-initiatives/ai-scribe-program
Canada Health Infoway. (2025b). Canada Health Infoway selects pre-qualified vendors for national AI Scribe program. https://www.infoway-inforoute.ca/en/news-events/announcements/news/2025-announcements/canada-health-infoway-selects-pre-qualified-vendors-for-national-ai-scribe-program
Canada Health Infoway. (2025c). AI Scribe: More time for patient care. [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/omYTcSq_lD8?si=plQ6fKUMFqukItsI
Privacy Commissioner of Canada. (2021). The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/privacy-laws-in-canada/the-personal-information-protection-and-electronic-documents-act-pipeda/
Sasseville, M., Yousefi, F., Ouellet, S., Stefan, T., Carnovale, V., Bergeron, F., LeBlanc, A., (2024). Impacts of AI Scribes on clinical outcomes, efficiency, and documentation, SPOR Evidence Alliance. https://sporevidencealliance.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/SPOREA_AI_SCRIBE_FINAL_Report.pdf
