Santé Québec plans to launch AI pilot project for medical notes in 2026

More and more healthcare professionals are using artificial intelligence (AI) to transcribe medical notes during patient consultations, and Santé Québec intends to seize the opportunity. It is planning a pilot project to be launched in 2026 with the goal of widely deploying AI for medical transcription needs.

Work is underway to evaluate available solutions for clinical and non-clinical note-taking, Santé Québec announced in an email to The Canadian Press.

Currently, only solutions that have obtained official certification from Santé Québec, among other things to guarantee the protection of patient data, can be used in the healthcare network. Plume IA and CoeurWay are among these Quebec companies, and they are attracting more and more physicians with their applications.

For now, Plume IA mainly works with family medicine groups (GMF). The company is currently in the process of having the application tested by speech therapists, social workers, doctors, and nurses “to demonstrate that it works” and eventually “to acquire a license for an entire department, for an entire hospital,” says Plume AI co-founder Dr. James Tu.

He launched Plume AI with Dr. Jasmin Landry just a year ago, and already, about 10 per cent of Quebec physicians use their application, representing approximately 2,000 physicians.

“The feedback we’re getting is really encouraging. Doctors call us, they write to us, they say we’ve changed their practice, they come home much less tired, they have more time with their families. We have anecdotes from family physicians who postponed their retirement this year because they found the burden had diminished, and that it brought back some joy to their work,” says Dr. Tu.

He is an emergency physician. In his practice, he estimates he’s able to see four to six more patients in an eight-hour shift.

The amount of time saved varies depending on the practice, but in general, healthcare professionals save one to two hours of chart writing per day.

“The application is accessible and works for all specialties,” says Dr. Tu. “[…] Those who gain the most value from using our application are those who have to do a lot of writing. I’m thinking in particular of social workers who have to write notes on the patient’s demographics and psychosocial aspects.”

Review, validate, insert into the file

The Plume AI application has two modes: the first involves recording the discussion during the consultation with a patient (after obtaining their consent), then the application transforms this discussion into a structured, medicalized note, a step that clinicians are used to doing themselves.

The doctor can also conduct the consultation normally, then at the end, record themselves speaking with the app, which will produce the same type of structured medical note.

According to Dr. Tu, even if the patient has a strong accent or uses certain phrases in another language, the app will be able to produce a reliable medical note.

“That’s the strength of artificial intelligence: it’s not necessarily a word-for-word transcription. It’s the artificial intelligence that interprets the conversation, […] which is able to deduce a little more about the context,” emphasizes Dr. Tu.

He acknowledges that occasionally, some errors can still slip into the note, and that clinicians must be vigilant. “I think it’s a habit everyone has anyway, instinctively rereading the note and correcting any typos or adding certain information that is more visual or implicit.” Then, they can correct the note directly in the app. It takes a few seconds, and then they can immediately validate it and add it to their file,” explains Dr. Tu.

For now, Plume AI is focusing solely on transcription, but its co-founder is confident that the technology will one day advance the accuracy and speed of diagnoses.

“The potential is almost infinite, and I think it will indeed happen,” he says. The doctor cautions, however, that important issues must be addressed, including ethical questions, accountability, and the diversity of data sources.

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