AI Computer-Assisted Technology During Patient Appointments

Delivering high quality patient care is a top priority for the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency. That’s why we are trialing a new computer-assisted documentation tool, called Mika AI Scribe, to help support and improve patient care.

Doctor listening to patient

This year, some of our physicians at the Allan Blair Cancer Centre in Regina and the Saskatoon Cancer Centre will be trailing this new AI tool during appointments with patients, who consent to its use.

This new technology will listen to the conversation between our health-care providers and their consenting patients and create clinical notes and letters that accurately reflect the discussion. This will improve the quality of provider-patient interactions by allowing the physician to focus completely on the patient, instead of also focusing on diligent note-taking.

Some of the personal health information that patient’s share with their provider will be processed by this technology to create accurate notes, which are then saved in the provincial electronic health record. This information is only used by necessary health-care providers to support their ongoing care and treatment.

While this technology is intended to improve accuracy and efficiency, there are some potential risks, as there are with any technology and even manual notetaking and typing. These risks include, but are not limited to, inadvertent errors in transcription or interpretation of your health information or, very rarely, potential data breaches. 

Doctor listening to patient

To reduce these risks, health-care providers will carefully review all documentation for accuracy before they are added to a patient’s medical record. 

Doctor’s are eager to use this new computer-assisted technology during their patient appointments, as it has been shown to produce quicker and more thorough, accurate information and notes, which will give them more time to focus on patients and their care. 

The physician notes from your appointments will be available for you to view in your MySaskHealthRecord account.

For more information, please speak directly with your physician or health-care team. 
 

Ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of your health information is very important to us. 

  • Your personal health information is protected under The Health Information Protection Act.
  • The information processed through this tool is kept confidential and is not used for any purpose outside of your medical care.
  • Audio from your appointment is not recorded or stored, and your information is not used to train or improve computer systems.
  • All medical records and dictated reports created with computer-assisted software will be identified as such.
  • All data is transmitted using secure, encrypted connections.

For privacy questions or concerns, please contact the Privacy Office at 1-855-833-2143 (toll-free) or email: privacy@saskcancer.ca.