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The Ambulatory Patient Experience with Ambient Artificial Intelligence Scribes: A Qualitative Study

Objective: The effect of ambient artificial intelligence (AI) scribes on patient experience remains understudied and has been largely limited to closed-ended surveys. Qualitative studies are needed to more fully explore how ambient AI scribes influence patient experience. The aim of this study was to explore how ambient AI scribes influence the patient experience and to identify factors that improve patients' comfort with these tools. Materials and methods: We conducted a qualitative study using a semi-structure…

By the Truvace desk2 min read1 sourcePeer-reviewedTRV-2026-2010· cite & verify
The Ambulatory Patient Experience with Ambient Artificial Intelligence Scribes: A Qualitative Study
"A patient exam room at an urgent care clinic and doctor’s office in North Carolina, United States 07" by Harrison Keely is licensed under CC BY 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

In brief

Researchers interviewed twenty patients from several ambulatory specialties, such as dermatology and primary care, whose clinicians were taking part in a randomized trial of an ambient AI scribe at an academic medical center. Patients described what the tool changed in their visits and what made them comfortable with it.

The findings suggest the scribes may support better communication between patients and clinicians, but the evidence is based on a small interview sample from a single type of setting. The study describes patient perceptions and does not measure clinical outcomes, so how far the benefits extend is still unclear.

Main points

  1. The study used semi-structured interviews and stopped recruiting at twenty patients, once thematic saturation occurred.
  2. Patients came from several ambulatory specialties, including dermatology and primary care.
  3. Reported benefits included fewer distractions, more thorough visit notes, and more time to answer patient questions.
  4. Comfort was linked to prior exposure to similar technologies, the device being unobtrusive, a lack of privacy concerns, and good existing clinician relationships.
  5. The authors conclude that scribes may improve verbal, non-verbal, and written patient-clinician communication.

The gain

Interviewed patients reported that clinicians using ambient AI scribes gave them more respect for their preferences, more thorough visit notes, and more time on their questions.

The rundown

The authors note that earlier work on ambient AI scribes and patient experience was limited mostly to closed-ended surveys, so they used open interviews built on domains drawn from a literature review. They analyzed the responses both deductively and inductively.

Participants were recruited through clinicians enrolled in a pragmatic randomized clinical trial of an ambient AI scribe implementation. Comfort with the tool depended on demographic factors, how noticeable the device was, privacy concerns, the existing relationship with the clinician, and anticipated benefits to care.

Sources

  1. Peer-reviewedJournal of General Internal Medicine2026-10-19

The debate