Objective: To assess the effect of a digital scribe among pediatric providers on documentation time, cognitive load, burnout, and caregiver satisfaction.
Materials and methods: Six-month pilot of digital scribe use in pediatric generalists and subspecialists between June 27, 2024 and February 22, 2025. We included all pilot providers with EHR record logs. Using pretest-postest and interrupted time series analysis (ITSA), we analyzed associations between digital scribe use and documentation time, NASA task load index, mini-Z burnout inventory, and caregiver satisfaction. We conducted thematic analysis of provider feedback.
Results: The digital scribe was used to generate notes for 69.5% of encounters (31 931/45 914) across 84 providers during 1454 provider-weeks. Compared with before scribe adoption, there was a mean time savings of 2.8 (95% CI, 2.1-3.5) minutes in the EHR notes activity per appointment following digital scribe adoption, averaging 1.5 (95% CI, 1.1-1.8) hours per provider-week, totaling 2143 (95% CI, 1607-2678) hours during the pilot. ITSA demonstrated 20.9% (95% CI, 17.2-24.6) time savings with digital scribe adoption. In provider surveys, there were significant reductions in all task load components (all P < .001). Burnout decreased from 54.9% (28/51) to 33.3% (17/51), P = .01. Provider-specific caregiver's likelihood-to-recommend increased from 92.3% (IQR, 88.1%-95.5%) to 94.3% (IQR, 89.7%-100.0%), P = .01. Thematic analysis of provider feedback frequently identified decreased cognitive burden and time savings.
Discussion: Digital scribe use was associated with decreased documentation time, task load, provider burnout, and improved caregiver satisfaction. Further study is needed to determine if pilot results are scalable.
Keywords: artificial intelligence; burnout; documentation; pediatrics.
© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association.