By Ariane Siegel, General Counsel & Chief Privacy Officer and Chandi Chandrasena, MD, CCFP, FCFP
OMD’s landmark project to identify, refine, and validate the value proposition of artificial intelligence (AI) scribe technologies, demonstrated that AI scribes have the ability to reduce administrative burden for clinicians. However, as the healthcare sector embraces the use of new digital health tools in everyday use, health information custodians must ensure they continue to meet their regulatory obligations, including those for privacy and security. The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC) recently published its guide to provide a comprehensive framework for adopting AI scribe tools safely, ethically, and in compliance with Ontario’s privacy regulations. Here are the key points:
Build Trust through Strong Governance and Accountability
Healthcare groups and organizations must establish clear governance and accountability measures before implementing AI scribes. This includes formal oversight structures, risk‑management frameworks, documented policies, and strong security controls to protect personal health information. Ongoing monitoring, human oversight, breach‑response processes, and transparency are also essential to maintaining trust.
Choose and Evaluate Vendors Carefully
The IPC emphasized that not all AI solutions are created equal. Vendor assessments are particularly important to help evaluate how systems are designed, how data is used and protected, and whether contractual safeguards prevent inappropriate access or sharing of data. Clinicians should understand their operational needs and ensure the technology aligns with privacy and security requirements.
Manage Privacy, Security, and Bias Risks
AI scribes, if not adequately managed, can introduce risks. These include transcription inaccuracies, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, or biases. To mitigate these risks, the IPC guidance calls for privacy impact assessments, bias testing, strong safeguards, and continuous monitoring of AI systems to ensure they remain safe, accurate, and fair.
Clear Expectations for Developers and Users
The IPC also outlines roles and responsibilities across an AI scribe’s lifecycle and steps that developers must take to create safe and reliable products.
- Developers must adhere to regulations on data storage, create a safe and reliable product, outline its features clearly, and take measures to mitigate its bias.
- Clinicians interested in buying and using AI scribes should thoroughly assess potential vendors, ensuring they enter into contracts with robust protections. AI scribe users are accountable for obtaining patient consent and ensuring that medical notes are accurate and well maintained.
Ontario AI Scribe Program – Alignment with the IPC’s Guidance
The Ontario AI Scribe Program established by the Ministry of health and Ontario Health, was designed to meet the critical regulatory obligations that health information custodians have and to help manage these underlying risk considerations up front. OntarioMD has been supporting Supply Ontario in the roll out of this program and onboarding of clinicians.
Details about the privacy, legal and security requirements are available on the Supply Ontario website. AI scribe vendors and their products were evaluated for clinical, business, legal, privacy, sand security requirements.
Why This Matters
Trust is fundamental to the Canadian healthcare system. In a recent survey by the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the most prominent concern about the adoption of AI scribes reported by 49% of respondents is medico-legal and privacy risk. It is critical that we support clinicians in the efficient adoption of digital health tools that can support their needs, satisfy privacy and data handling obligations to their patients, and enable their own compliance obligations. The Ontario AI Scribe Program seeks to balance and maintain the confidence and trust of patients.
Interested in Adopting an AI Scribe?
The Ontario AI Scribe Program, and its vetted vendors and contracts, help to make AI scribe adoption, implementation, and usage safer and easier for clinicians. Visit the OMD Practice Hub for more information, including tips on optimizing AI scribe workflows, AI-related articles, a Patient Consent Toolkit, and Transition Support Guide.
Contact OMD at support@ontariomd.com to explore what an AI scribe can do for your practice.
