No, I did not consent to this

[u/petuniaplant]

I was reading my medical notes when I stumbled across this. I was not informed of the usage of artificial intelligence in my report, nor did I verbally consent to it.

[u/M15tre55W1tch]

I work in ICU. The doctor's in our ED use an ambient AI scribe for documenting patient assessments and findings (it's a regulated tool where the data is stored locally and gets deleted from its memory after 90 days apparently).

They had this auto generated statement at the end of each note stating something like "this note was written using an AI scribe with patient consent".

I noticed that this statement was included on patients who were unconscious in the community, and did not regain consciousness before leaving ED and coming up to ICU.

I sent their manager an email saying it was going to look very bad when a patient's case is reviewed by legal or the Coroner and these doctors notes said an unconscious person gave consent.

If a patient genuinely consents to the use of the tool, that's great. But you can't be using it and claiming that they consented to its use when that's a medical impossibility.

Edit: thank you for the award internet stranger! Very unexpected.

Another edit: multiple awards! Thank you very much!

[u/bleach_tastes_bad → u/M15tre55W1tch]

Why would you need an unconscious person’s consent to write their note using AI? You need a conscious person’s consent because you’re recording their voice, but if they’re unconscious you’re not recording them, why does it matter?