AI scribes: UK regulator issues update on use of technology by doctors

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued fresh guidance for clinicians on the regulation of ambient voice technology (AVT).1These so called AI scribes record and summarise conversations between clinicians and patients.The guidance confirms that AVT products intended solely for transcription, summarising of clinical conversations, drafting letters, or suggesting clinical codes for a clinician to review do not count as medical devices.This ruling has dismayed doctors and patient advocates who argue that it puts patients at risk and relies on doctors to judge the accuracy of products that they have not been trained to assess.One of the key issues raised by experts is how AVTs process the sound they record before transcribing it, a process called “lossy compression.”Put simply, the artificial intelligence tool removes sound it deems nonessential to the recording to make its summary, reducing file sizes for storage and streaming.Mark Coley, the digital, IT, and data…