JAMA finds scribes cut 16 minutes

JAMA published a multisite study on April 1, 2026, finding that clinicians who adopted ambient artificial intelligence scribes spent less time documenting visits and slightly increased weekly patient volume. The paper tracked use across five U.S. academic medical centers and compared clinicians who adopted the tools with control clinicians at the same institutions. The headline figure was a 16.0-minute reduction in documentation time, alongside a 13.4-minute drop in total electronic health record time. The findings add a large real-world data point to a market that has expanded quickly across health systems and medical groups. ### Which study produced the 16-minute figure? Lisa S. Rotenstein of the University of California, San Francisco, and co-authors reported the result in “Changes in Clinician Time Expenditure and Visit Quantity With Adoption of Artificial Intelligence-Powered Scribes: A Multisite Study,” published in JAMA on April 1, 2026. The study examined ambient AI scribe adoption at five academic medical centers in the United States. (jamanetwork.com) Mass General Brigham, which co-led the work, said more than 1,800 clinicians using AI scribes were compared with about 6,770 control clinicians at the same institutions. The health system described the project as the first published results from the Ambient Clinical Documentation Collaborative, or ACDC. (jamanetwork.com) ### What exactly got shorter when clinicians used ambient scribes? JAMA’s key points said AI scribe adoption was associated with decreases of 13.4 minutes in total EHR time and 16.0 minutes in documentation time. The same summary said weekly visit volume increased by 0.49 visits. Mass General Brigham said the reductions represented relative declines of 3% in EHR use and 10% in documentation time. (massgeneralbrigham.org) The institution also said the revenue increase tied to the extra visits was statistically significant but small, at about $167 per month per adopting clinician. ### Who appeared to benefit the most in the data? (jamanetwork.com) Mass General Brigham said the largest improvements were observed among primary care physicians, advanced practice providers, female clinicians, and clinicians who used ambient documentation in at least half of patient encounters. The same release said clinicians using the tools in more than 50% of visits saw twice the reduction in total EHR time and three times the reduction in documentation time. (massgeneralbrigham.org) Only 32% of users reached that level of use, according to the same release. That gap matters because the study measured associations after adoption, but the size of the benefit varied with how consistently clinicians used the tool in routine workflow. ### Why doesn’t a time-saving result settle the adoption question? (massgeneralbrigham.org) Rebecca G. Mishuris, chief health information officer at Mass General Brigham and a senior author, said the time reductions were “unlikely to fully account” for previously observed changes in burnout. She said the findings underscore the need to understand how the tools change care delivery while clinicians are using them. (massgeneralbrigham.org) A January 2026 JAMA Health Forum editorial by Pragya Kakani, Austin S. Kilaru and Melinda B. Buntin said unanswered questions remain about downstream effects on spending, quality and equity. The editorial said concerns include whether ambient scribes could increase coding intensity or prompt additional, potentially low-value services. ### What do physicians say the tools are like to use? (massgeneralbrigham.org) Shreya J. Shah and co-authors reported in JAMA Network Open that interviews with 22 physicians found facilitators to adoption included ease of use, ease of editing and generally positive views of note quality. The study covered a California pilot conducted from November 2023 to January 2024 across primary care and ambulatory specialties. (jamanetwork.com) The same qualitative study found barriers including limited functionality with non-English-speaking patients and lack of access for physicians without a specific device. It also reported mostly positive comments about patient engagement, cognitive demand and work-life integration, while still emphasizing workflow integration and implementation details. ### What comes next for this evidence base? (jamanetwork.com) The April 1, 2026 JAMA paper gives health systems a larger benchmark for measuring whether ambient scribes reduce documentation burden in practice, but the related JAMA commentary calls for further evaluation of spending, quality and equity outcomes. The ACDC collaboration’s next published work, if it follows the sequence described by Mass General Brigham, is likely to focus on how these tools affect clinician workflows beyond raw time savings. (jamanetwork.com) (massgeneralbrigham.org)