Listening to the note: clinician perspectives on ambient artificial intelligence scribes in medical documentation

To qualitatively characterize barriers and facilitators to implementing and using an ambient scribe across a large academic medical center, as well as how ambient transcription reshapes clinicians' perceptions of their work.

We conducted semistructured interviews with clinicians who participated in an ambient scribe pilot (n = 8) and the initial enterprise rollout (n = 16). We sought heterogeneity by specialty, note volume, burnout, and prior time-in-notes. Interviews (26-60 min) were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed thematically using a naturalistic, ethnographic approach informed by broad implementation considerations, and an analytic lens treating note sections as documentation "genres."

Clinicians described feeling more present with patients and greater satisfaction during visits. Fictions included overlong or underspecified sections (eg, History of Present Illness vs Assessment & Plan), unfamiliar formatting, and a perceived loss of "voice." Participants discussed how they used documentation to personalize practice, demonstrate expertise, manage impressions with colleagues and supervisors, and communicate sensitive findings-activities not fully captured by efficiency metrics. Inpatient and procedure-heavy contexts reported limited benefit where documentation was already highly standardized.

Early ambient scribe implementation produced recognizable benefits, but introduced new work to reconcile AI-drafted text with local documentation genres and audience-specific communication. Tailored prompts, onboarding, and peer support may reduce the need to revise artificial intelligence (AI)-generated text.

Ambient scribe adoption can enhance patient interactions and perceived efficiency while reshaping how clinicians express voice and expertise in notes. Implementation strategies attentive to documentation genre and audience may help align ambient scribe outputs with clinical communication needs.