Ahpra guidance and intelligent session notes: your responsibilities

Start with the actual product

Find out what the tool is intended to do, what it cannot do and what information it processes. A documentation assistant and a diagnostic system are different products. A polished demonstration is not enough to tell you which you are looking at.

Make review part of the job

Read the draft against what happened in the session. Look for omissions, misplaced certainty and statements that sound plausible but were never discussed. Decide who checks the note and when, rather than leaving review as an optional final step.

Use the current guidance

Ahpra highlights informed consent, privacy and understanding the tool. Its National Board framework concerns registered professions; practitioners outside that framework should check the requirements of their own profession and setting. Read the source guidance below rather than treating a vendor’s checklist as a determination of your obligations.

Ahpra: professional obligations when using artificial intelligence

Turn guidance into a practice decision

Keep a short decision record for the tool you are considering: its intended use, the information it receives, who reviews drafts and the questions still unanswered. Assign each open question to someone before proceeding. This gives the practice a record of its reasoning rather than a folder of vendor brochures. Review that decision if the product or your proposed use changes.

Put it into practice

Use these prompts to guide your next step.

• Confirm the tool’s intended purpose and limitations.
• Identify the code or professional requirements that apply to your role.
• Document how consent and draft review will work.
• Resolve unanswered questions before using patient information.