AI note-taking tools for GPs may miss vital patient information, study suggests

AI tools that record GP consultations can save doctors time, but researchers warn they may overlook some of the information that gives a patient’s account its meaning.

A University of Edinburgh report found that the systems can capture what patients say while missing facial expressions, gestures and emotional states. Their summaries tend to favour clinical information, potentially pushing patients’ personal stories and experiences of illness into the background.

The researchers also said patients may hesitate to disclose sensitive information when they know a consultation is being recorded and processed by AI. Examples include substance abuse, domestic abuse and mental health problems.

The report comes after doctors in the West Midlands told the BBC that the transcription tool Heidi had sharply reduced their workload. At one clinic in Dudley, staff credited it with cutting a backlog of patient letters from six months to 14 days.

Researchers said AI scribes can support more meaningful conversations and allow clinicians to concentrate on complex work. But they also warned that shifting some mental effort to the tools, a process known as “cognitive offloading”, can weaken memory recall and skill development. In some cases, clinicians reportedly failed to recognise their own notes or remember patients at later appointments.