Overview
Initiative type
Model of Care
Status
Deliver
Published
June 2026
Summary
AI Scribe enhances clinical documentation by using AI generated notes to reduce the administrative burden on clinicians and improve workflow efficiency across Sunshine Coast Health.
Dates: 1 November 2025 - November 2026
Implementation sites: Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service
This project was presented as a poster at CEQ Showcase 2026 (PDF 180KB).
Aim
To improve the quality, efficiency, and accessibility of clinical documentation through the implementation and optimisation of AI Scribe across SCH.
Outcomes
- Reduced clinician time spent on documentation
- Improved accuracy and consistency of clinical notes
- Increased clinician satisfaction and wellbeing
- A threefold increase in sites and a doubling of staff routinely engaged in paediatric pain care in North Queensland.
Background
Clinical documentation is a significant contributor to administrative burden for clinicians across Sunshine Coast Health. Many clinicians report spending substantial time completing patient notes outside of rostered hours, contributing to fatigue, reduced job satisfaction, and inefficiencies in patient care delivery. These challenges are amplified in community, outreach, and mobile environments where desktop access is limited, and connectivity can be unreliable.
AI Scribe, developed by Heidi Health, offers an AI enabled solution that generates structured clinical notes and correspondence from patient consultations. We conducted a successful Proof of Concept (POC) between April - August 2025 SCH has implemented a health service wide roll out of AI scribe for eligible clinicians across all our faculties and clinical directorates and facilities. The POC findings demonstrated strong and sustained time savings in documentation, a reduction in overtime hours, improvements in quality of documentation and increased clinician satisfaction and wellbeing.
The implementation deployed AI Scribe through a browser based platform, which quickly demonstrated strong uptake and positive feedback from clinicians.
The central problem addressed by this project was how to improve documentation efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility across diverse clinical settings, while supporting SCHHS’s broader digital transformation objectives. The project sought to evaluate the benefits, risks, and operational considerations.
This submission outlines the implementation, outcomes, and learnings from the AI Scribe rollout and provides evidence to support the decision to expand across SCHHS.
Methods
The project followed a staged training and support approach for the wider health service go-live, the creation of a self-paced online training module ensured there were no blockers for clinicians wishing to get started and allowed the training team to deliver dedicated training sessions per directorate.
Key activities included:
1. Engagement and Onboarding
- Early engagement with clinical directors, digital champions, and frontline clinicians.
- Development of onboarding materials and training sessions
- Establishment of a dedicated AI Scribe education and support team.
2. Training and Support
- Delivery of structured training sessions (virtual and self-passed online).
- Monthly clinical directorate focused support cycles to deepen adoption across teams.
- Creation of templates aligned with SCH documentation standards.
3. System Configuration and Access Management
- Centralised user provisioning
- Collaboration with Heidi Health to optimise system performance and address feedback.
4. Evaluation and Feedback
- Monitoring of adoption rates, documentation time savings, and workflow impacts.
Discussion
Success Factors
The project was supported by strong executive and clinical leadership, along with high clinician demand for documentation relief. Dedicated education and support resources helped drive adoption, and the flexibility of AI Scribe allowed it to integrate effectively into a wide range of clinical workflows. The Project team members had current experience with the training, onboarding and support of a transcription platform (FFT) for outpatient and emergency department correspondence. We successfully harnessed that experience in our approach for the implementation of AI Scribe. AI Scribe implementations are occurring in several health services across Queensland, and we are actively engaged in a statewide working group to share implementation strategies, best practices and lessons learnt. Regular and productive engagement with the AI Scribe vendor significantly contributed to our successful rollout.
Lessons Learned
Clear and consistent communication was essential to set expectations and support users throughout implementation. Focused training periods helped directorates build momentum, and strong governance around templates and user access proved critical to ensuring clinicians had the right tools at the right time.
Limitations
Feature updates may vary between versions of the platform, and SCHHS ICT cannot provide support for non‑standard devices. Differences in device performance can also influence the overall user experience.
Next Steps
- Expand mobile app endorsement across all SCHHS directorates.
- Continue monthly directorate focused support cycles.
- Integrate additional templates and specialty specific workflows.
Explore opportunities for statewide alignment and shared learnings.
References
N/A
Key contact
Dr Stephen Priestley | April Gusti
Clinical Director Digital Transformation | Principal Strategic Learning Manager (Digital Health & Technology)
Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service
Email: Stephen.Priestley@health.qld.gov.au | April.Gusti@health.qld.gov.au