The Charting Cure, Part 1: Exploring Non-Clinical AI Tools for Healthcare Documentation

How to dip your toes into AI note-taking without risking your clinical voice (or your license)

The Charting Cure: A 4-Part Series on AI, Documentation, and Healing Your Relationship with Your Notes

If you work in healthcare, you’ve probably felt it:

That creeping dread at the end of a long day, knowing the visits are done but the very necessary work of  charting is still waiting. Ah yes, the golden rule of modern medicine: If you didn’t write it, you didn’t do it - and you definitely won’t get paid for it.

Whether you’re in primary care, hospice, pediatrics, or hospital medicine, documentation has become one of the most draining parts of our jobs. What started as a clinical tool to capture meaningful stories is now often a battleground of checkboxes, risk management, and after-hours toil.

I’m writing this series from the perspective of a hospice and home-based pediatrician. Our visits are long, emotionally rich, and impossible to reduce to a few bullet points. But everything I’ll share applies to any clinician who has ever whispered:

“If I didn’t have to chart, I might actually love this job.”

With the rise of AI-powered note-taking tools, there’s new hope. And definitely a little (well deserved) hesitation. Can they really help? Will they add complexity or clarity? Where do I even start?

This series will walk you through a low-risk, human-centered way to explore AI in your documentation flow. With zero hype, fear, or pressure to overhaul everything at once.

Part 1: Start Where It’s Safe – With Non-Clinical Tools

Before jumping into HIPAA-compliant, EHR-integrated AI scribes, there’s real value in building familiarity with simple tools you can try today. These non-clinical AI note-takers help you get a feel for how AI interprets your voice, how it structures information, and what kind of support it might (or might not) offer.

No pressure. No patients. Just you, your thoughts, and a little machine-learning magic.

📚 Why Documentation Feels So Heavy

Between EHR clicks, templated text, and CYA language, the emotional and cognitive load of note-taking is sky-high. Especially in settings like:

• Pediatrics, where you're capturing multi-voice visits and complex psychosocial factors

• Hospice or palliative care, where the most meaningful parts of a visit rarely fit into a template

• Home care, where your “exam room” might be a kitchen table with a barking dog in the background

(And  remember your soul-stirring, life-changing home visit? Worth exactly $0 without a note.)

🤖 What Non-Clinical AI Tools Can Do

These tools won’t file your billing codes or sync with your EHR. But they will help you:

• Dictate summaries or reflections

• Capture your voice for later refinement

• Transcribe lectures, meetings, or podcast notes

• Get comfortable with how AI “hears” you before bringing it into the exam room

🛠️ 4 Non-Clinical AI Tools to Try

These tools are safe, simple, and surprisingly smart.

🔹 Otter.ai

• Real-time transcription with speaker ID

• Great for meetings, lectures, or debriefing after visits (without PHI)

• Keyword tagging + auto-summary features

• Free tier available

🔹 Fireflies.ai

• Best for virtual meetings and dictation

• Automatically generates summaries + searchable transcripts

• Useful for practicing how AI captures complex conversations

🔹 Notta

• Real-time transcription in multiple languages

• Clean, easy-to-export summaries

• Can sync with Zoom or your calendar

🔹 Read.ai

• Primarily for meeting insights (engagement, sentiment, etc.)

• Fun for observing how AI interprets team dynamics

• A gentle way to experiment with AI listening, even if not used for notes

🧪 Try This: Low-Risk Experiments

Want to get started today? Pick one experiment below:

✅ Dictate a short summary after a home visit (with no identifying info)
✅ Record a debrief conversation with a colleague or yourself
✅ Use Otter or Notta to capture and summarize a team meeting
✅ Play with tone—formal vs. casual—and notice how the AI handles it
✅ Practice structured SOAP-style dictation and see what the AI picks up

Pro tip: If the output is awkward now, don’t panic. These tools are learning—and so are you.

🧭 What This Isn’t (Yet)

This isn’t about outsourcing your charting or replacing your clinical judgment. This is about making space for curiosity and starting small.
You’re not committing to a new workflow—you’re just testing the water.

👣 Coming Up Next...

In Part 2, we’ll explore HIPAA-compliant clinical AI tools that pediatricians, pediatric specialists, and hospital teams are starting to test in real patient care. We’ll walk through what to look for, what to avoid, and how to protect your patients and your peace of mind.

This is Part 1 of a 4-part series. Want the rest delivered straight to you, along with bonus resources? Sign up below.