AI BriefingOntario Auditor General Finds AI Note-Taking Tools for Doctors Repeatedly Get Basic Facts Wrong
Key point
Ontario's Auditor General audited 20 AI Scribe systems and found widespread errors.
Details
Ontario's Office of the Auditor General audited the Ministry of Health's procurement of the AI Scribe program and found widespread critical errors in patient care notes across the 20 approved systems.
The evaluation had medical professionals compare AI-generated notes against original transcripts based on simulated doctor-patient recordings. The results were as follows.
- 9 systems fabricated treatment plan suggestions or facts that were not in the recording.
- 12 systems got medication information wrong.
- 17 systems missed key details related to patients' mental health.
Sample notes included things presented as fact—such as masses or patient anxiety—that were never mentioned in the recordings.
The problems weren't limited to performance. In the procurement evaluation, having a presence in Ontario accounted for 30%, while note accuracy was only 4%, and bias control and risk/privacy assessment were each just 2%.
OntarioMD recommended that doctors manually review AI notes, but none of the approved systems had mechanisms mandating accuracy verification. The Ministry of Health stated that more than 5,000 doctors are currently participating in the program, and that there have been no reported cases of known patient harm.
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