As most readers of Healthcare IT Today know, AI medical scribes that automate clinical documentation are all the rage. Over the past couple years, these solutions have really matured and you’re finding them taking care of the documentation and relieving that burden from clinicians. As I’ve talked to dozens of companies that offer these solutions, I’d often ask them how they do across specialties. Many of them answered that they worked in most specialties and then they’d offer the exception of behavioral health. Most would acknowledge that they were working on it and would get there with behavioral health too.
In many ways, the behavioral health exception makes sense since it’s a very different style of visit. Most visits in medical practices are 15-30 minutes. In behavioral health they’re generally closer to 60 minutes. That’s a lot more talking that needs to be summarized in the behavioral health note. Plus, the side conversations that happen in a medical practice may not be relevant to the clinical documentation. In behavioral health, those side conversations may be incredibly relevant to include in the documentation.
Given some of these nuances, I was excited to learn about Note Taker by SimplePractice which is taking on automating clinical notes for behavioral health clinicians. To learn more about this solution, I interviewed Aaron Weiner, PhD, ABPP, Executive Vice President at Prevention Research Institute. Check out our interview below.
I’m a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of Illinois, a master addiction counselor, and a board-certified counseling psychologist. I’ve engaged in private practice in a number of different ways, including full-time as part of a hospital, part of a group practice, my own private practice, and more recently on a part-time basis.
My specialties are in addiction and trauma, and I’m very interested in addressing mental health from a public health and scalable context. I like thinking critically about how to solve society’s problems through the creative use of technology and by leveraging—rather than ignoring—mental health.
Currently, I’m the Executive Vice President at a nonprofit called Prevention Research Institute, which creates curricula to help people change their relationship with alcohol and engage in fewer high-risk drinking choices.
2. Describe the life of a psychologist when it comes to session notes, crisis documentation, intake assessments, etc. without AI tools.
Without AI, documentation as a psychologist is an onerous task. You either have to take notes during a session—which can be fragmented and pull your attention away from the session at hand—or you have to spend time writing them after session, which can really add up, especially when you have to document complex cases or numerous sessions in a day.
Regular progress notes tend to take between five and ten minutes unless they’re highly templated and largely unspecific, and intake assessments done properly can take over ten minutes, depending on how many notes you take during the assessment.
3. Why did you decide to start using Note Taker in your practice? Why did you choose it over many of the other AI documentation assistants out there?
I decided to start using Note Taker in my practice because I was interested in seeing how effectively AI could capture and summarize sessions while removing some of the extra support time required every day. I found that clinical documentation and note-taking were not just taking time, but also required a lot of mental and emotional energy. My sessions often run close to 60 minutes, and finding time either during the middle or at the end of my day ended up being more challenging than I thought it would be.
I chose to use Note Taker within SimplePractice primarily because of the seamless integration with the clinical record, as well as my confidence in the security measures that SimplePractice has in place. The fact that it’s entirely housed on their own servers—where I’m already doing my telehealth sessions—meant a great deal to me in terms of feeling comfortable with the security, and I figured it would be reassuring to my clients as well, since they’re already working on that platform.
4. What was the onboarding process like for Note Taker? What are some of the things you had to do differently to make it work effectively?
The onboarding process was pretty seamless for Note Taker. I came on during a beta test phase, so there were some little glitches that had to be worked out at that point, but as the tool evolved into its current form, it’s been pretty easy to use.
You do need to spend time editing when you use an AI note-taking tool, as opposed to composing notes from scratch. That said, it’s still less time than writing the notes yourself, and the level of detail captured is far beyond what I think many therapists are currently capturing in their notes. To use the tool ethically and responsibly, you still need to read what’s written, and that takes some time, but that review process is much more efficient.
5. How would you describe the impact of Note Taker on your work day? What have been the benefits you’ve seen from it?
Note Taker has had a clear impact on my work day in a couple of ways. First, knowing that Note Taker is capturing all the important and relevant detail from sessions is a huge weight off my shoulders in terms of documentation. I no longer have to worry about getting an initial note draft done quickly, or that I might forget salient details—the whole session is in there, and that’s very helpful.
This also means that I can complete the review process at whatever time is convenient for me, as opposed to trying to do it in close proximity to the session so that I don’t forget details. I can just slide in time to review notes whenever it’s convenient. It also simply takes less time to do the editing and reviewing work as opposed to raw composition, so that’s even more time back in the day. On the whole, what you’re getting is a better note that takes less clinician time and is less stressful to produce. It’s a win all-around.
6. How have patients reacted to you using Note Taker during the visit?
There were a couple of comments from patients right after I first started using Note Taker. Nobody had an explicit problem with it and asked for me to stop using it, except for one, which I was happy to accommodate. A couple of patients made lighthearted comments about how AI is everywhere, including now in the therapy room. But they confirmed that they didn’t have any problem with using it.
We’re becoming more comfortable with AI tools being integrated into a number of different facets of life. Speaking for myself, my medical providers use AI note-taking now when I go in for visits with my primary care doctor or a specialist. The idea that AI is being used in healthcare to reduce documentation time is becoming normalized and makes a lot of sense.
To me, it’s the next evolution in how technology can improve and streamline care while freeing up more time for providers to actually attend to patients. For example, I can remember plenty of medical appointments where I’d be talking to the doctor, they’d ask a question, type in the response, and for most of the appointment, they would just be looking at their screen, not at me. Now using AI, the notes are better, they take less energy, and it allows providers to deliver a better experience when you’re in an appointment with them.
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