An AI scribe that listens in on emergency consultations and drafts the clinical notes has now reached 1,250 clinicians across 39 hospitals in New Zealand, under Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora's HealthX innovation programme.
At Middlemore Hospital, clinicians report better documentation and improved wellbeing, with more time freed for direct patient care, according to the Public Service Commission. HealthX, which began in September 2025, finds, assesses and scales digital and AI tools led by clinicians, with projects ranging from AI-assisted documentation to remote patient monitoring.
The programme was a finalist for the Te Tohu Auaha Hou | Innovation Award at this year's Te Hāpai Hapori | Spirit of Service Awards, held in Wellington on October 1. The commission says HealthX shows how proven solutions can be scaled safely and effectively across a health system through clinical leadership, governance and assurance.
Documentation burden is one of the most-cited drivers of clinician burnout worldwide, and emergency departments — where notes must be written between unpredictable surges of patients — are a natural test bed. New Zealand's rollout is among the largest public-system deployments of ambient AI scribing reported so far.
