How Heidi has changed the way I work

Heidi is an AI-powered clinical documentation assistant that helps healthcare professionals capture conversations, generate structured notes and complete routine administrative tasks more efficiently. Dr Tim Rowell, Specialty Doctor in Palliative Medicine at Saint Francis Hospice, shares how using Heidi has reduced the burden of documentation, improved the flow of consultations and given him more time to focus on caring for individuals.

Before I started using Heidi, one of the biggest challenges I faced was the amount of documentation that comes after a consultation. In palliative medicine, we can spend one to two hours on a complex visit and gather a huge amount of information. Trying to record all of that afterwards felt like a huge challenge and was incredibly time-consuming. 

I was a GP before I came to the hospice and was used to shorter consultations and briefer notes. Here, I was trying to pull together everything I had learnt from a visit, combine it with information we already had, write the care plan, draft GP letters, complete medication authorizations and contact other specialists. It felt like a big burden. I could easily spend an hour or more typing everything up afterwards and would often leave later because of all the note writing. 

Now, at the beginning of a consultation, I ask the individual for consent to use Heidi. It works from my phone and sits in the background listening while we talk. When the consultation finishes, I simply press stop and, within seconds, Heidi pulls together the key information from the conversation and puts it into our usual notes template. 

I can also ask Heidi to combine the consultation notes with information we've already gathered, such as a triage assessment completed before the visit. It can draft letters to GPs and compose emails to specialists, which saves even more time. 

One feature I particularly like is the dictation facility. I can dictate notes as I drive back from a home visit and it doesn't matter what order I say things in because the AI re-orders and structures everything afterwards. It's a lot better than the average dictation software. 

The difference it has made to my workload has been huge. It has been fantastically time saving. I'm much more likely to leave work almost on time and I can focus more on the plan for the individual rather than just on the notes. 

It's also changed the way I interact with individuals. Consultations feel more fluid because I'm not constantly stopping to write things down. Heidi doesn't miss things, stop listening or become distracted, so details that I might otherwise forget are captured. 

Just this afternoon, I had two lengthy visits to write up and I'd estimate Heidi saved me at least one to one-and-a-half hours of documentation time. 

I'll admit that I was initially anxious about using AI and wasn't sure how it would help. However, Heidi has been fairly revolutionary. It's made a real difference to the way I work and I'm even trying to get the team at Queen's Hospital to adopt it too. I keep going on about it! 

For me, Heidi isn't about replacing the clinician. It's about reducing the administrative burden and giving me more time to focus on what really matters – caring for individuals.