Enhancing Your Care with AI: Introducing Heidi AI
At Galway Bay Medical Centre, we are committed to providing the highest quality of care for our patients. To help us do this, we have introduced a new, secure, and innovative tool called Heidi AI to assist our GPs during consultations.
What is Heidi AI?
Heidi AI is an intelligent medical assistant designed to help doctors with their administrative tasks, specifically by accurately and securely transcribing consultation notes. It listens to the conversation between you and your GP during your consultation and, in the background, drafts a set of medical notes. This allows your GP to focus their full attention on you and your health concerns, rather than on typing notes.
Why are we using it?
Our primary goal in using Heidi AI is to improve the quality of your consultation and the accuracy of your medical records.
- More Focused, Personalised Care: By handling the note-taking, Heidi AI allows your GP to maintain eye contact, actively listen, and engage more deeply with you during your visit. This means a more personal and attentive consultation experience.
- Greater Accuracy: The AI captures the details of the conversation in real-time, reducing the risk of a GP forgetting a key detail when writing notes after a consultation. This leads to more precise and comprehensive medical records.
- Improved Efficiency: Reducing the time a GP spends on administrative work frees up more time for patient care, research, and professional development.
How does it work?
When your GP uses Heidi AI, a secure, dedicated microphone captures the audio of the consultation. This audio is processed by the AI to create a draft of the notes. No audio is stored, and the notes are never saved until your GP reviews and approves them. Your GP has full control and will always review, edit, and finalise the notes to ensure they are accurate before they are added to your secure patient file.
Your Privacy and Data Security are our Top Priority
We understand you may have questions about the security of your medical information. We want to assure you that your privacy is our highest priority.
- Strict Security Protocols: Heidi AI operates under the strictest data protection and security standards. It is a certified medical device and is fully compliant with all relevant privacy regulations, including GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). In addition, this service is now supported and approved by our professional bodies and indemnifiers (Irish College of GPs and Medisec).
- No Personal Identifiers: The system does not use your name, date of birth, or any other personal identifiers during the transcription process. The AI only handles the content of the clinical conversation.
- Secure & Encrypted: All data transfer is end-to-end encrypted. The audio is processed instantly and is never stored. The draft notes are only available to your GP for a short time and are permanently deleted after the GP has finalised and saved them to your patient record.
- You are in Control: If you are not comfortable with the use of Heidi AI during your consultation, simply let your GP know at the beginning of your appointment. Your GP can easily turn the system off, and your consultation will proceed as normal.
Questions?
We believe that this technology will be a great benefit to both our patients and our GPs. If you have any further questions or concerns about Heidi AI, please do not hesitate to speak with any member of our practice team.