AI Scribes in Healthcare: Hype, Reality, and the Fight for Clinician Time

Update: 2025-09-18

Description

Welcome back to The AI-Ready Doctor! In today's episode, your host Dr. Hassan Bencheqroun is cutting through the hype to ask: Are AI-powered scribes just the latest trendy feature, or are they truly transforming the frontlines of clinical care?

With Epic, Oracle, Doximity, and more jumping into the ambient scribe arena, we dive into what it really means for a scribe to be "native" to both medicine and electronic medical records. Dr. Bencheqroun shares firsthand insights from beta-testing these tools, discussing critical questions around HIPAA compliance, usability, and real-world impact on clinicians' most precious resource, time.

Does the promise of AI scribes hold up? Will they actually cure the infamous “pajama time” or will we look back in five years and laugh at today’s bold claims? Along the way, we’ll explore how AI scribes influence resident training, the importance of AI literacy for doctors, and the ongoing balance of trust, privacy, and patient-centered care.

If you’re curious about which ambient scribe is right for you, skeptical of shiny new tech, or just trying to reclaim a little more face-time with your patients, this is one episode you don’t want to miss. Tune in as we challenge assumptions, share practical tips, and try to answer the question: Who’s really building for physicians—and who’s just playing us with the next hot gadget?

00:00 Medical Notes: Core of Clinical Practice

04:31 Medical Scribing Software Overview

07:40 Hyponatremia Algorithm Simplified

12:20 "Scribe Studies: Examining Efficacy"

17:14 "Doximity Impressions During COVID"

18:18 "Physician-Centric Scribe Development"

22:03 Human Insight vs. AI Misinterpretation

26:48 AI Note Editing Responsibility

29:45 Who Owns Patient Data?

32:26 AI-Driven Risk Prediction Benefits

35:47 "Stay Curious, Embrace AI"

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