# 10,000 Qld doctors adopt AI note-taking tool > Source: > Published: 2026-09-02 06:42:01+00:00 # 10,000 Qld doctors adopt AI note-taking tool More than 10,000 doctors in Queensland will now use Heidi Health’s artificial intelligence-powered note taker to complete patient medical records, marking the biggest rollout of the technology in Australia. Heidi Health is the fastest growing start-up on Blackbird Venture’s books, [eclipsing graphic design darling Canva](https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/recordbreaking-raise-sees-heidi-health-outpace-canvas-early-growth/news-story/abf6f67ecbf02dc0fe106b74a1549cd2), with a valuation of about $711m. Former vascular surgery resident Thomas Kelly founded the company, which records and automatically transcribes patient consultations, slashing the amount of time it takes for doctors to complete their notes and medical records by about 92 per cent. The company says this allows doctors to see more patients and more record their conditions more accurately. Metro South Health, the public hospital and specialist health care system covering more than one million people in Brisbane and nearby southern towns, adopted [Heidi’s](https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/tech-workers-plan-exodus-as-treasurers-tax-overhaul-assaults-innovation/news-story/26af0ec3c92a1468132eace58ab8fbce) technology across five hospitals, including Princess Alexandra and QEII in Brisbane after a trial last year. It declined to disclose the value of the three year contract. But it said the scribe has so far saved doctors 59 minutes a day on average, allowing them to focus on patients. Emergency department specialist Julian Wong, who works at Logan Hospital south of Brisbane, said about 95 per cent of his patients had embraced the technology, with a further 4 per cent agreeing to its use after they were given more information. Only 1 per cent have declined. Dr Wong said it has changed the way he completes a consultation, which had inadvertently empowered patients. “There’s additional things I might do. Now I might verbalise my examination of the patient, and so I might say ‘abdomen is soft’ and the patient will ask what that means and I will just explain it to them,” he said. “And so I think there’s actually probably an untold benefit in that it actually upskills and educates the patient to be potentially more involved in healthcare decision making process because they’re actually more aware of what happened.” Dr Wong said it also allowed him to more accurately record patient notes. “EDs are chaotic. We get an interruption every 20, 30, 40 seconds. And as you get more senior, more of those interruptions tend to happen,” he said. “We’ve found previously a lot of those senior reviews and escalations weren’t actually documented. So that’s another sort of safety point that we’re hoping to actually find in the data.” Heidi recruited Simon Kos, who formerly worked at Microsoft alongside chief executive Satya Nadella, as its chief medical officer last October. Dr Kos said while there had been a proliferation of AI notetakers, not every organisation will have “the stomach” to work through the legislation needed to become a regulated medical device. “Right now, there is no law around this, but I think over time we’ll actually have the regulation that supports more confidence in it. That’ll mean we’ve moved to the next stage of maturity,” Dr Kos said. “We take the fact that we’re built by clinicians for health really seriously. This whole AI scribing revolution started in the less-governed areas of primary care and outpatient specialist land. We’ve made the shift over the last year or so into deploying into enterprises, and we take that super seriously.” Heidi uses Microsoft Azure as its cloud provider for the Metro South Health deal. It also uses Google Cloud Platform to host and process its models, and Amazon Web Services, alongside Microsoft, for data storage “in certain regions such as US, Japan, Australia, Sweden and UAE”. Dr Kos said doctors still needed to review Heidi’s output to prevent “automation bias” and becoming a crutch. “What we’ve now got here is an AI scribe doing what a junior would do. So you consider those notes that come out as draft notes. “You would never just say, ‘All right, they’re fine. Submit’. You always take them, you review them, and so the humans are in control of that. I think most doctors understand the gravity of notes and the professional implication of signing your name against it, and the medico-legal risk that it entails.” The trial showed more than 70 per cent of patients at Metro South Health reported they felt their clinician spent more time with them, heard and cared for them. Georgie Hynes, 33, from Alexandra Hills said she valued the face-to-face connection in clinic with her doctor. “I really felt listened to,” she said. “I forgot the AI scribe was even there, and you can see how helpful it is to the clinicians.” Other findings included 56 per cent of doctors saying the scribe delivered better or as good as their own note-taking, while 22 per cent said it had increased their well-being. *This article first appeared in The Australian as Queensland health service adopts Heidi Health AI scribe for 10,000 doctors in major deal* ## Related Topics ### UNLOCK INSIGHTS Discover the untold stories of emerging ASX stocks. 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