ScribeZA is an ambient medical scribe for South African private practice. It listens to the consultation, drafts the clinical note in the format you choose, and suggests ICD-10 codes for you to review, edit and sign.
Documentation has quietly become most of the job. This gives that part of it back to you.
Routine review of type 2 diabetes. Two weeks of worsening fatigue, polyuria and polydipsia; ran out of metformin five days ago. No blurred vision, no lower-limb numbness. Denies chest pain or shortness of breath.
Dear Colleague
Thank you for seeing Patient N.D., a 62-year-old woman with type 2 diabetes, whom I reviewed today.
She describes two weeks of worsening fatigue, polyuria and polydipsia, in the context of a five-day interruption in her metformin supply. On examination her weight was 84 kg, blood pressure 142/88 mmHg and random glucose 13.4 mmol/L. Her most recent HbA1c was 9.1%. Protective sensation in both feet was intact, with no ulceration.
I have restarted metformin 1 g twice daily and reinforced adherence. I would be grateful for your assessment with regard to medical nutrition therapy.
Kind regards
Scheduled review of type 2 diabetes, with a two-week history of fatigue, polyuria and polydipsia.
Weight 84 kg, BP 142/88 mmHg, random glucose 13.4 mmol/L, HbA1c 9.1%. Feet examined; protective sensation intact, no ulceration.
Metformin 1 g BD restarted following a five-day supply interruption. Adherence discussed.
Ran out of metformin five days ago. Fatigue, thirst and passing urine more often for about two weeks. Up 3 kg.
BP 142/88 · glucose 13.4 · HbA1c 9.1% · weight 84 kg · feet clear
Control has slipped, and the treatment gap explains most of it. Nothing here suggests a new complication. Feet are fine, and there are no visual or cardiac symptoms.
Back on metformin 1 g BD. Dietitian. Recheck HbA1c in three months, sooner if she deteriorates.
The same consultation, in four different formats. Switch between them above, including a template written in your own words, in your own section order.
ScribeZA sits in the background during your consultation, listens, and produces a complete clinical note in the format you work in, so keeping good records stops competing with being a good doctor.
Most scribes produce one house style and ask you to adapt to it. ScribeZA adapts to you: your format, your phrasing, your speciality. That difference is the whole point.
SOAP, referral letter, discharge summary, or a template you write yourself, with your own headings in your own order. Format is a choice you make, not an output you accept. Change it per consultation, or set a default and never think about it again.
Every edit you make is a signal. Correct a phrasing, reorder a section, cut something you never record, and the next note arrives closer to what you would have written. Over weeks, the drafts stop reading like software and start reading like you.
A psychiatric consultation and an orthopaedic follow-up are not the same document. The note structure, the level of detail, and what gets emphasised follow your discipline rather than forcing every doctor through one general-practice mould.
Consultations here are multilingual. Patients move between South African languages mid sentence, and a scribe trained somewhere else simply loses that. ScribeZA is being tuned on South African speech and local clinical vocabulary, so the note reflects what was actually said in the room.
Phone on the desk, consult as you normally would. No dictation, no commands, no stopping to type.
Codes are suggested from the content of the consultation. You approve, change or remove every one.
The draft stays a draft. It becomes a clinical record at the moment you sign it, and not before.
Patient consent is prompted and recorded before listening starts. Part of the flow, not a policy page.
Select the patient, tap once, set the phone down. That is the whole setup.
Eyes on your patient, not on a screen. ScribeZA listens in the background.
A complete note in your format, with suggested codes, waiting when the consultation ends.
Adjust anything, sign it off, move on. Your edits teach the next note.
ScribeZA produces drafts. A draft is clearly marked as AI-assisted and carries no clinical or legal weight until a registered practitioner reviews and signs it. That sequence is deliberate, and it is not configurable.
You can edit any part of any note before signing. The record that results is yours, written to the standard the HPCSA expects of you, because you are the one who put your name to it.
We would rather be the tool that makes you check than the tool that asks you to trust.
Consultation audio is among the most sensitive data a practice holds. It is treated that way from the first line of code.
The scribes that exist were built for American medicine. They were trained on American voices, they code for American billing, and they have never heard a consultation that moves between two South African languages in the same sentence.
ScribeZA is being built here: tuned on South African speech, on the clinical vocabulary actually used in local rooms, and on ICD-10 as it is used in South African private practice.
It is being shaped with South African doctors, in South African practices, from the beginning rather than adapted for this market after the fact.
ScribeZA is pre-launch. It is being built now, in South Africa, with doctors involved in shaping it rather than being sold to at the end. If that is the kind of thing you would rather be early to than late to, this is the way in.
I am building ScribeZA because South African doctors have never had a documentation tool built for them. Every AI scribe on the market was made for somewhere else, and it shows the moment a real consultation starts.
I would rather build this slowly and correctly, with doctors telling me where it is wrong, than ship something confident and hollow into a field where being wrong has consequences. If you would like to help shape it, or you simply have thoughts to share, I would love to hear from you.
Puso · Founder, ScribeZA · puso@scribeza.co.za
No. You select the patient, tap record once, and consult exactly as you always have. There is nothing to dictate, no phrases to remember, and no need to speak differently for the benefit of the software.
What ScribeZA produces is a draft, clearly marked as AI-assisted. It carries no clinical or legal standing until you review and sign it. Once you sign, it is your record, held to the same standard as any note you have ever written. That is why review and sign-off cannot be skipped or automated away.
Consent is captured before recording starts. Audio is encrypted in transit and at rest, access is role-based and audited, and patient data is never used to train models without separate explicit consent. Rights of access and erasure are supported, as POPIA requires.
You edit it, and the correction teaches the system how you would have put it. Every draft is yours to change before you sign, and nothing reaches the record without passing through you first.
Yes, and this is the part we care most about. Alongside SOAP, referral letters and discharge summaries, you can define a template using your own headings in your own order. If you have documented a particular way for twenty years, ScribeZA fits that rather than asking you to abandon it.
Fill in the short form at the bottom of this page. We will come back to you directly, whether or not you turn out to be a fit for the first wave.
Pricing will be published before launch. Early access is free for the first wave of doctors, and if you join that group you will know the price well before you are ever asked to pay anything.
Free for the first wave of doctors, with a direct line to the person building it and real influence over what a South African medical scribe turns out to be.
Your details are with us. Puso will be in touch directly, usually within two working days. If it is urgent, write to puso@scribeza.co.za.