Who’s Asking? Consent for AI medical scribe use in Australian healthcare

This project was a successful recipient of CAIDE's 2026 seed funding round.

AI scribes automate healthcare documentation by ‘listening in’ or audio-recording consultations, generating structured clinical notes. AI scribes’ adoption in Australian healthcare is accelerating rapidly, and scribes hold potential to reduce clinicians’ administrative load and improve doctor-patient communication.

Clinicians must seek patients’ informed consent for scribe use, to meet legal (privacy, surveillance, health records) and ethical (autonomy, justice) obligations. Early reports indicate emerging problems. Constraints on clinicians’ time and technological understanding can undermine the quality of information patients receive. Clinicians are given mixed guidance on consent for scribe use, and may shortcut consent processes. Patients report being given little information, feel reticent to voice concerns, and experience unwanted AI scribe use. There is sparse empirical evidence about consent for scribe use in healthcare, and a real risk of misalignment between clinicians’ practices and beliefs, and patients’ experiences and expectations.

This mixed-methods project, involving researchers in law, medicine and digital health, aims to:

• investigate how consent for the use of AI scribes is communicated, understood, and operationalised in Australian healthcare settings, and
• develop practical guidance for clinicians and patients.

Researching team

This project is led by  A/Prof Megan Prictor (Melbourne Law School), A/Prof Dr. Grant Blashki (Melbourne School of Global Population and Health), Dr Belinda Davey (Centre for Digital Transformation of Health), Dr Kit Huckvale (Centre for Digital Transformation of Health), Dr Yingyi Luo (Melbourne Law School), Dr Charlotte Blease (Uppsala Universitet, Sweden), A/Prof Rita Matulionyte (Macquarie Law School), Dr Elizabeth Deveny (Consumers Health Forum) and Mr Tom Johnson (Consumers Health Forum).