AI documentation tools for occupational therapists: the four kinds, and where home assessments differ

The four kinds of tool

1. General clinical AI scribes

These listen to a consultation through a phone or laptop microphone and write the note in a clinical format, with templates for many professions. Heidi Health is a widely used example; its occupational therapy template captures demographics, history, functional abilities and daily living skills, and includes sections for Australia's NDIS funding scheme (source 4). Tools in this group are strong on speed and on the range of specialties they cover, and their OT templates are one option among hundreds.

2. Therapy-specific scribes

These do the same job with templates and language built for therapists. Twofold Health turns dictation or a session summary into SOAP and progress notes, with templates for pediatric, school-based, adult rehabilitation and hospital settings, and produces text to paste into any EMR (source 1). PatientNotes transcribes or takes dictation, offers initial, follow-up and multi-session report templates, and connects to practice management systems such as Cliniko and Jane (source 2). CliniScripts, which markets to Canadian and United States practices, writes SOAP and custom OT notes from live sessions, dictation or uploads, and names PHIPA and PIPEDA alongside HIPAA in its compliance claims (source 3). None of the three describes measurements, photographs of the environment, or funder forms on its OT page as of the date above.

3. Documentation built into the EMR or practice management system

Several therapy EMRs now include an AI note feature, so the transcript, the note and the billing sit in one system. This suits clinics that already live in that EMR and want no extra vendor. It rarely suits community OTs who write into a funder's form rather than a chart, because the output is designed for the EMR's own note screen.

4. Home assessment assistants

This is the newest group and the one OmaScan AI belongs to. The tool sits in on the home visit rather than a consultation, and the record it builds is the home itself: notes and voice, photos tied to findings, measurements, and a 3D scan of the rooms with real dimensions. From that record it drafts the assessment report in the OT's own template and fills in the funder forms. The OT reviews, edits and signs every word before anything is sent (how OmaScan AI works). The distinguishing feature is that the environment is captured as data, so the tub rim height or the doorway clear width is in the report because it was measured during the visit, whether or not anyone remembered to write it down.

Why a home assessment is a different documentation problem

A session scribe is built around a conversation. Its raw material is speech, and its output is a narrative note. A home assessment produces a different kind of evidence, and three things in particular do not come from a transcript.

• Measurements. A contractor cannot install from "the doorway is narrow". The report needs the clear width, the threshold height and the tub rim height, and a scribe has no way to know them unless the OT dictates every number.
• Photos tied to findings. The funder's reviewer has never seen the house. A photo of the finding, with the measurement on it, is what makes a recommendation reviewable. Session scribes do not handle images of the environment.
• The funder's form. Most home modification funding in Canada runs through a program-specific form (provincial home modification programs, Veterans Affairs Canada, workers' compensation boards, insurers, First Nations and Inuit Health Branch). The same findings have to be entered a second time, in the funder's order. A tool that only writes a narrative note leaves that second pass to the OT.

For clinic-based sessions and progress notes, a scribe is the right tool and a home assessment assistant is the wrong one. For the community OT whose week is home visits and funding applications, the reverse is true. Some practices will reasonably run both. Our guide to what a home assessment report needs lists the measurements and sections that any tool, or any template, has to cover.

What to ask before you sign up

The answers to these questions separate the tools faster than a feature list does.

1. Does it write into my template and my funder's form, or into its own? If the answer is "copy and paste into your form", count the second pass in the time you are saving.
2. Who approves the output before it goes anywhere? The correct answer is you, every time. A tool that sends or files on its own is a documentation risk, and your college will treat the note as yours regardless.
3. Where is the data stored, in which country and region, and who at the vendor can see it? Ask for the answer in writing, with the region named.
4. Is client data used to train the vendor's models? The answer should be no, and it should be in the contract, not on a marketing page.
5. Which privacy laws has the vendor assessed against? For Canadian practice that means PIPEDA and the applicable provincial health information law (PHIPA in Ontario, PHIA in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Nova Scotia, HIA in Alberta, and so on). A HIPAA claim on its own tells you about the United States.
6. Does it work in a home with no Wi-Fi and poor cell signal? Many do not, and the basement is where the signal fails.
7. Can it handle measurements and photos, or is it audio only? This is the question that decides whether the tool fits home assessment work at all.
8. How is it priced? Session scribes are usually monthly subscriptions. Home assessment tools may charge per assessment, which fits a caseload that varies month to month. Work out the cost per completed report either way.
9. What happens to the audio? Some vendors delete it after the note is made; some keep it. Know which, and know whether your consent script needs to change.

Privacy and professional obligations in Canada

Whatever the tool, the OT remains the custodian of the record and the author of the note. Regulatory colleges' record-keeping standards do not change because software drafted the first version, and a client should be told that an AI tool is being used during the visit and given the chance to decline. When a vendor names PIPEDA and a provincial health privacy law, ask what that claim rests on: a privacy impact assessment, a data processing agreement you can sign, and a named hosting region are the documents that mean something to a privacy officer.

Common questions