HealthScribe

AWS HealthScribe — HIPAA-eligible service that automatically generates clinical notes from patient-clinician conversations using generative AI.

What is AWS HealthScribe?

AWS HealthScribe is a HIPAA-eligible generative AI service that combines speech recognition, medical NLP, and large language models to automatically create preliminary clinical documentation from patient-clinician conversations. It transcribes conversations, extracts medical terms, and generates summarized clinical notes — all in one service.

Key Insight: HealthScribe provides a single managed API for transcription, clinical insights, and draft documentation generation.

Key Features

Feature	Description
Turn-by-Turn Transcription	Rich transcript with word-level timestamps
Speaker Role Identification	Distinguishes clinician vs. patient automatically
Transcript Segmentation	Categorizes dialogue (small talk, subjective, objective, assessment, plan)
Medical Term Extraction	Identifies conditions, medications, treatments, procedures
Clinical Note Generation	Auto-generates SOAP notes (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan)
Multiple Note Templates	HISTORY_AND_PHYSICAL, GIRPP, BIRP, SIRP, DAP, BEHAVIORAL_SOAP, PHYSICAL_SOAP
Evidence Mapping	Every AI-generated sentence links back to original transcript
Batch & Streaming	Process recorded files or real-time conversations
HIPAA Eligible	Covered under AWS BAA, no data retention

Use Cases

Automated Clinical Documentation

Reduce physician burnout by auto-generating preliminary notes from patient visits — clinicians review and finalize instead of writing from scratch.

Telemedicine Documentation

Automatically document virtual consultations for remote care platforms and telehealth providers.

Medical Scribe Assistance

Equip medical scribes with AI-generated transcripts and notes to accelerate documentation turnaround.

Behavioral Health Documentation

Use GIRPP (Goal, Intervention, Response, Progress, Plan) template for mental health and therapy sessions.

Clinic Workflow Optimization

Extract medical terms to auto-suggest EHR fields, CPT codes, or follow-up actions.

How It Works

1. Capture Audio: Record patient-clinician conversation (live or pre-recorded)

2. Submit to HealthScribe: Upload audio file or stream in real-time

3. Processing: HealthScribe performs:

Transcription with speaker identification
Dialogue segmentation (small talk vs. clinical content)
Medical entity extraction
Clinical note summarization with evidence mapping

4. Receive Outputs:

Transcript File: Turn-by-turn conversation with timestamps
Clinical Documentation File: Summarized notes with evidence links

5. Review & Finalize: Clinician reviews, edits, and approves notes for EHR entry

# Example: Start HealthScribe job
response = transcribe.start_medical_scribe_job(
    MedicalScribeJobName='visit-123',
    Media={'MediaFileUri': 's3://bucket/consultation.mp3'},
    OutputBucketName='output-bucket',
    DataAccessRoleArn='arn:aws:iam::...',
    Settings={
        'ShowSpeakerLabels': True,
        'MaxSpeakerLabels': 2
    }
)

Clinical Note Templates

Template	Purpose	Sections
HISTORY_AND_PHYSICAL (default)	General medicine	Chief Complaint, History of Present Illness, Review of Systems, Past Medical History, Assessment, Plan
GIRPP	Behavioral health/therapy	Goal, Intervention, Response, Progress, Plan
BIRP	Behavioral therapy	Behavior, Intervention, Response, Plan
SIRP	Situational therapy	Situation, Intervention, Response, Plan
DAP	Simplified clinical notes	Data, Assessment, Plan
BEHAVIORAL_SOAP	Behavioral health SOAP notes	Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan
PHYSICAL_SOAP	Physical health SOAP notes	Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan

Pricing & Free Tier

Aspect	Details
Free Tier (first 2 months)	300 minutes/month
Pricing	$0.10 p er min u t e ($ 6.00 per hour)
Minimum Charge	15 seconds per request
Billing Increment	1-second increments

Cost Example:

1,000 consultations/month × 15 minutes each = 15,000 minutes

Cost: 15,000 min × $0.10/ min = * *$ 1,500/month**

Cost Comparison:

Transcribe Medical: $0.075/min

HealthScribe: $0.10/min (33% more, but includes NLP + Generative AI summaries)

Manual scribes: $2-5/min equivalent (20-50x more expensive)

⚠️ Pricing Disclaimer: AWS pricing is subject to change. Pricing shown is based on information available as of January 2026. Always verify current pricing at the official AWS HealthScribe pricing page.

When to Use HealthScribe

Use	Don’t Use
Automated clinical note generation	Simple transcription only (use Transcribe Medical)
Reducing physician documentation burden	Non-clinical conversations
EHR integration workflows	Real-time surgical documentation (latency issues)
Primary care, orthopedics, behavioral health	Specialties requiring non-standard note formats

HealthScribe vs Other Services

Aspect	HealthScribe	Transcribe Medical + Comprehend Medical	Manual Medical Scribes
Output	Transcript + Clinical Notes	Transcript + Entities	Full clinical documentation
Generative AI	✅ Built-in	❌ Requires separate Bedrock integration	✅ Human intelligence
Cost	$0.10/min	$0.075/ min +$ 0.01/unit	$2-5/min
Accuracy	High (requires review)	High (raw data)	Highest
Speed	Near real-time	Real-time	Hours to days
Best For	Automated workflows	Data extraction pipelines	High-stakes documentation

Evidence Mapping & Responsible AI

Traceability: Every sentence in AI-generated notes includes references to original transcript segments

Transparency: Clinicians can click references to verify accuracy and context

Trust: Evidence mapping reduces hallucination risk and builds confidence in AI outputs

Workflow: Designed for human review — not fully automated clinical documentation

Important: HealthScribe is designed to be used in an assistive role for clinicians and medical scribes, not as a substitute for clinical expertise. All outputs should be reviewed before entering into EHRs.

Supported Specialties

General Medicine (optimized)
Orthopedics (optimized)
Behavioral Health (GIRPP template)
Additional specialties supported but may have lower accuracy

Important Notes

HIPAA Eligible: Covered under AWS Business Associate Agreement (BAA)
No Data Retention: AWS doesn’t store audio or transcripts after processing
English Only: Currently supports US English only
Batch & Streaming: Both modes available (batch recommended for initial workflows)
Not a Medical Device: HealthScribe is a documentation tool, not FDA-cleared diagnostic software
Review Required: Always review AI-generated notes before finalizing for patient records

Integration Workflow

Patient-Clinician Conversation
    ↓
AWS HealthScribe (single API call)
    ↓
Output:
├── Transcript (turn-by-turn with timestamps)
├── Clinical Note (SOAP format with evidence)
└── Medical Terms (conditions, meds, procedures)
    ↓
Clinician Reviews & Approves
    ↓
EHR System (finalized documentation)

Customer Examples (2023-2025)

3M Health Information Systems: Integrated HealthScribe into ambient clinical documentation solutions
ScribeEMR: Using HealthScribe to optimize EMR workflows and coding processes
Pariveda: Developed AI-powered clinical documentation to reduce physician burnout
Netsmart: Combining HealthScribe with Bedrock for auto-generated progress notes in telehealth

TL;DR

HealthScribe = All-in-one clinical documentation automation service
Features: Transcription, speaker ID, medical entity extraction, clinical note generation, evidence mapping
Free Tier: 300 minutes/month for first 2 months
Pricing: $0.10/ min ($ 6/hour)
Best for: Automated clinical note generation, reducing documentation burden, EHR integration
Templates: HISTORY_AND_PHYSICAL, GIRPP, BIRP, SIRP, DAP, BEHAVIORAL_SOAP, PHYSICAL_SOAP
Key Benefit: Saves clinician time — review instead of write from scratch
Critical: Always requires human review before finalizing notes

Resources

AWS HealthScribe Official product page and overview.

HealthScribe Documentation Complete API reference and guides.

HealthScribe Pricing Detailed pricing breakdown.

Lalit's Cloud & DevOps notes