By NextBestFitFund scribes and AI documentation
Pay for scribes or ambient AI documentation tools.
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This path
Fund scribes and AI documentation
Concrete changes if chosen
What would actually have to change in law, agencies, payment rules, or systems.
- Pay for scribes or AI documentation tools
Effects
Each effect has its own page: the evidence, the case that it is or isn't a real cost, and whom it affects.
What it fixes
- Clinician burnout from paperwork and EHR work
Scribes or ambient documentation tools can be deployed quickly to shorten documentation time. They leave the underlying documentation rules in place.
What it creates or worsens
- Health privacy
Ambient documentation records visits, raising privacy concerns.
- Medical errors and poor care coordination
Artificial intelligence documentation can produce notes containing errors.
7 paths soften this
Mandatory error reporting and learning systemMedical errors and poor care coordinationChosenEvery person registered with a primary care homeMedical errors and poor care coordinationChosenStandby payments to keep labor units openMaternity care desertsChosenMinimum nurse staffing ratiosNursing and direct-care shortages and burnoutChosenEvidence-based coverage decisionsLow-value care and overtreatmentChosenShift to small homes and home careNursing home understaffing and qualityChosenNational health record and patient IDRecords don't follow patientsChosen
Who's affected
Who gains
- Doctors, nurses, and other clinicians
- Clinician burnout from paperwork and EHR work: Documentation and insurer paperwork drive burnout and early retirement.
- People with ongoing or specialist care needs
- Clinician burnout from paperwork and EHR work: Paperwork leaves less face time with clinicians.
- Health data brokers
- Health privacy: They benefit from health information shared for marketing.
- Hospitals, clinics, and care organizations
- Medical errors and poor care coordination: Fee-for-service providers are paid for treating complications.
Who loses
- Health administration and software vendors
- Clinician burnout from paperwork and EHR work: They supply the record and billing systems used for administrative work.
- People with ongoing or specialist care needs
- Health privacy: Widely shared sensitive health information can expose them to harm.
- Medical errors and poor care coordination: Delivery and coordination failures cause preventable harm.
- People needing mental health care
- Health privacy: Widely shared sensitive health information can expose them to harm.
- Pregnant and postpartum people and infants
- Health privacy: Widely shared sensitive health information can expose them to harm.
- Immigrants and mixed-status families
- Health privacy: Widely shared sensitive health information can expose them to harm.
- Insurance and billing workers
- Health privacy: Ambient documentation records visits, raising privacy concerns.
Where it has been tried
- U.S. health systems: Early studies show reduced documentation time.
- Los Angeles, United States: A 2025 randomized trial found Nabla AI scribes reduced physician note-writing time by 9.5% versus usual care, while DAX showed no significant change.Sources: NEJM AI (2025)