Clinicians across Canada and globally face significant administrative burden, with documentation adding cognitive load, after-hours work, and reducing time for patient care. To address this, Canada Health Infoway launched the national AI Scribe Program to provide safe, vetted AI scribe solutions and accelerate responsible adoption in primary care.
The program funded 10,000 AI scribe licenses for eligible clinicians across Canada, making it the largest national implementation of AI scribes. Infoway used a coordinated national model spanning vendor qualification, onboarding, communications, operational support, performance tracking, and evaluation. Its “evaluate once, use many” procurement approach created a trusted assessment process jurisdictions and healthcare organizations can leverage, reducing duplication while supporting consistent privacy, security, clinical, and operational considerations. Working with provinces and territories, vendors, and External Advisory Council, Infoway tailored implementation to local needs, showing how national organizations can accelerate responsible AI adoption while preserving local decision-making.
The program has achieved significant national-scale adoption, with14,000+ clinicians registered,11,000+ clinicians having used an AI scribe, and nearly 7,000 actively using the technology each month. Evaluation results show strong clinician value: over 80% were satisfied with overall performance, more than 90% found AI scribes valuable to practice, nearly 70% reported reduced administrative burden, and almost 80% noted lower cognitive load.
A 12-month evaluation is underway to assess sustained impact and longer-term outcomes. The program demonstrates the potential for responsible, large-scale AI adoption to improve clinician workflow, reduce administrative pressure, and support sustainable care delivery.