AI scribes promise to hand doctors their evenings back by turning a consultation into a finished note. Most were built for other markets. Here is how they actually work, what to check before you trust one with patient data, and why a tool made for Malaysian consults is a different thing.
An AI medical scribe listens to a consultation and drafts the clinical note for you, so you spend less time typing and more time with the patient. The doctor still reviews and signs; the AI assists, it does not decide.
Most of the well-known scribes are trained on American English and American charts, and they stumble on how a Malaysian consult actually sounds. Catat (getcatat.com), built by Purple Playhouse, is an AI medical scribe made in Malaysia: it works in Manglish, Bahasa Malaysia, and English, and is in daily clinical use. This guide explains what to look for, whichever tool you choose.
Under the marketing, almost all of them follow the same four steps:
The differences between tools show up in steps two and three: how well they understand the way you and your patients actually speak, and how usable the note is before you have to fix it.
A scribe is only as good as its ear. A Malaysian consultation slips between English, Bahasa Malaysia, and Manglish, sometimes inside a single sentence, and produces documents like an MC that international tools were never designed to write.
A tool trained mainly on American accents and American paperwork will transcribe less accurately and leave you correcting more, which erodes the time it was supposed to save. This is the core reason a locally built scribe tends to fit a Malaysian clinic better than a bigger international name.
Before trusting any scribe with a consultation, work through five questions:
Documentation is not just admin, it is your medicolegal record. In a complaint, an audit, or a dispute, your notes are the evidence, and a busy clinic is exactly where notes get cut short.
A good scribe helps here, not by removing your responsibility, but by making a complete, contemporaneous note the default for every consultation rather than something reconstructed from memory at the end of the day. The treating doctor remains responsible for every note; the tool just makes the thorough version the easy one.
Patient information is personal data. In Malaysia it falls under the Personal Data Protection Act 2010, and clinical recordings should be treated as sensitive by default. This is the area to be least trusting and most specific.
Ask any vendor, plainly: what is recorded, where is it processed, where is it stored, how long is it kept, and who can access it? A credible provider will answer clearly and put it in writing. If the answers are vague, that is your answer.
Sources: peer-reviewed reviews of AI scribe and large language model technology in clinical documentation set out both the benefits and the limitations, and recommend that clinicians review and sign every note, for example Advantages, Limitations, and Recommendations (PMC). Data handling in Malaysia is governed by the Personal Data Protection Act 2010. This is general information, not legal or clinical advice.
Catat is our own AI medical scribe, built for Malaysian clinicians. It records a consult in Manglish, Bahasa Malaysia, or English and turns it into a structured clinical note, an MC, and a patient letter, and it is in daily use in a Malaysian paediatric practice. There is a free trial, so you can test it on your own consults before deciding.
We built Catat because the international tools did not fit how clinics here actually run. If you are weighing up scribes, the honest test is to try one on a real, code-switched consultation and see how much you have to fix.
Yes. Catat (getcatat.com), built by Purple Playhouse, is an AI medical scribe made in Malaysia for Malaysian clinicians. It records a consultation in Manglish, Bahasa Malaysia, or English and turns it into a structured clinical note, an MC, and a patient letter. It is in daily clinical use in a Malaysian paediatric practice, with a free trial available.
Most do not. The best-known AI scribes are trained mainly on American English, and they struggle when a consultation moves between English, Bahasa Malaysia, and Manglish in the same sentence. A locally built scribe such as Catat is designed for exactly that.
They are assistive tools, not a replacement for clinical judgement. Peer-reviewed reviews describe real benefits alongside clear limitations, and the consistent recommendation is that the clinician reviews and signs every note. Used that way, an AI scribe supports documentation rather than deciding it.
That is the first question to ask any vendor. In Malaysia, patient information is personal data under the Personal Data Protection Act 2010. Ask exactly how recordings and patient data are captured, processed, and stored, and where, before you commit. Treat clinical data as sensitive by default.
Languages it genuinely handles, the documents it produces, where and how data is processed and stored, whether the doctor reviews and signs every note, and whether there is real local support. A tool built for how Malaysian clinics actually run will fit better than a generic international one.
Try Catat free on your own consults, or talk to us about rolling it out.
Start a free trial →