Voice notes

A voice note records what you say — a dictation, or the appointment itself — on the patient's record. Smileline transcribes it and writes a draft note from it. The draft is only a starting point: you review it, edit it, and complete and sign the note as you always do.

Switching voice notes on

Voice notes are off until an owner or manager switches them on.

1. Open Settings → Practice details.
2. Turn on Voice notes. The note beside the switch says what is recorded, who processes it and that the recording is kept with the patient's clinical record.

Where voice notes are not available for your country, Smileline refuses the switch. See Practice details.

Who processes what

• Cloudflare transcribes the audio.
• OpenAI writes the draft from the transcript.

Both do this for Smileline under their data processing agreements, as they do for call recordings and Call AI. Whatever is said aloud — names, dates of birth and anything else — reaches them as it was said: nothing is removed first. Smileline adds no name, date of birth or identifier of its own.

Recording

Anyone who can write clinical notes can record.

The recording is sent in parts as you go, a minute or so at a time, so little is ever waiting in your browser. When the connection drops, the bar shows how many parts are waiting to send and keeps trying. If it can't reach Smileline for a long stretch, recording pauses with "Can't reach Smileline: paused. Nothing recorded so far is lost." and resumes once it can send again.

Leaving the patient's record ends the recording, after asking. What was sent is kept, and the recording can be continued.

A recording that was interrupted

A closed tab, a crash, a computer that went to sleep or a microphone that stopped leaves the recording where it was, with every part already sent. Open the patient's record and it shows Recording interrupted, with how much was saved:

• Continue recording carries on where it stopped.
• Finish with what's saved finishes it with the parts already sent.
• Discard deletes it, with a reason.

Reviewing the draft

When the draft is ready the record shows it beside the note editor, with:

• the transcript, each line with its time and a play button;
• the draft's paragraphs and, for a note template with questions, its proposed answers — each with a play button for the moment of the recording it came from;
• anything flagged No source found: check: a sentence or answer whose moment Smileline could not find in the recording. It is kept so you can check it, never removed;
• answers set aside because they don't fit their question, listed but never used;
• the questions the draft left unanswered.

Smileline writes what was said, and only that. It suggests nothing clinical and never completes, signs, charts or prescribes anything. Checking the draft against the recording is your job.

Click Use draft to write the note from it. The paragraphs go in at the cursor of a new or open draft note. Answers fill only the questions you have not answered yet, and only on a note with the same template's questions; otherwise they stay beside the editor for you to copy. Nothing is saved until you save the note. The note is then marked Drafted from a voice note, and you edit, complete and sign it as usual — see Clinical notes.

Only the clinician who made the recording can use its draft.

A part that couldn't be transcribed

A part Smileline couldn't transcribe after a few tries, or one it couldn't read, holds up the draft:

• Retry transcribes the part again.
• Skip this part leaves it out. The transcript marks the gap, for example "[1:30 skipped]", and the draft is written without it.

When writing the draft itself fails, Retry writes it again. When the recording is too long to draft in one go, Draft a selection writes a draft from the parts you choose; the full transcript stays readable for writing the rest by hand.

Conflicting and late parts

Two different parts sent for the same place in the recording are both kept: the second is listed as conflicting. A part that arrives after Finish is listed as late. Each stays listed until you decide:

• Add to the recording adds a late part as the recording's next part, and the draft is written again.
• Discard removes it, with a reason.

Moving a recording to the right patient

A recording made on the wrong patient is moved with Move to another patient, with a reason. The recording, its transcript and drafts move with it; its appointment and treatment are cleared to choose again. The move is recorded on both patients' records.

If a note was already written from the recording, mark that note Entered in error first. The note stays on the record as history, still naming the draft it was written from.

A recording already kept with the clinical record shows Moving until every part has moved.

Stop and delete, and Discard

Stop and delete on the Recording bar stops at once. Nothing recorded in that session can be opened from then on, and its stored copies are deleted shortly after, once the clean-up's safety delay (about 20 minutes) has passed. Discard does the same for a recording you have finished. The clinician who recorded it, or an owner or manager, can discard it, with a reason; who did, when and why are kept.

Both are available until a note written from the recording is completed. After that the recording is part of the clinical record.

What is kept

When a note written from the recording is completed, the recording joins the patient's clinical record:

• The recording, its transcript and its drafts are kept with the record for as long as clinical records are kept, dated by that note's completion.
• The recording plays under its note. It is not listed among the patient's documents.
• It is in the patient's data export: the consent, times, transcript, drafts and the notes written from it, with a link to download the recording.
• When a patient is erased, a recording no completed note was written from is deleted with them; one that is part of the clinical record is kept under the same rules as their clinical notes.

If filing the recording into the record stops, the recording shows it with Retry filing. Nothing is filed twice.

A recording nobody writes up is never deleted because of its age. It waits on the Voice notes to write up list in To do.