Recording visits with Ambient Scribe

Ambient Scribe is the feature that lets you stop typing during a visit. Ona records the conversation, transcribes it, and uses it to draft the note and summary — so the documentation comes from what was actually said, not from what you remember to type afterward.

Recording every visit

Open a visit first: in the left sidebar, click Visits, then click the visit. Visits can be recorded, whichever way you meet the patient:

Use Start recording (1) from the visit to begin an onsite capture, and In person (2) marks the visit as an in-person recording. The device's microphone captures the room.

• Over video — the call is recorded and transcribed when call recording is on. The recording button shows whether the call will be recorded and transcribed, or whether it won't be recorded or transcribed.

The recording dock sits at the bottom of the dashboard and in the Recordings section of the visit sidebar. If you leave the visit while a capture is in progress, a compact pinned recorder stays available so you can return to the visit being recorded. If you try to leave the clinic dashboard with a recording in progress, Ona asks whether to Stay here or Stop and leave when the recording is kept on the device, and Discard and leave only when browser storage is unavailable. If you sign out, Ona shows Sign out with a recording in progress? and gives you Stay here or Stop and sign out when the recording is kept on the device, and Discard and sign out only when browser storage is unavailable. If a recording is interrupted by a reload, crash, closed tab, or failed upload, Ona restores it from browser storage when you come back.

Changing the recording setting during an in-progress video call requires confirmation. If you turn transcription on or off mid-call, the meeting room restarts and everyone currently in the call, including the patient, has to rejoin using the same link.

The Recordings view

In the left sidebar, click Visits, then click the visit. In the visit sidebar, under Inputs, click Recordings. It's a two-pane view: recordings on the left, the transcript on the right.

Use Recordings (1) to open the view.

Use Recordings (1) on the left, the Recordings pane (2) for the list of captured files, the Transcript pane (3) for the conversation text, and Upload a recording (4) to add an existing MP3, M4A, or WAV file, up to 100MB, which is handy for a visit recorded on another device. Before anything is captured, the left pane can read "No recordings yet — start an onsite recording or join the video call to capture this visit," and the right pane says "Transcript will be available shortly after you finish the meeting." If recording is off for the visit, the view reads "Recording is off" and "The video call for this visit won't be recorded or transcribed. Turn recording back on from the dock to capture it."

A captured recording and its transcript

In the left sidebar, click Visits, then click the visit. In the visit sidebar, under Inputs, click Recordings. Once a visit is recorded, the panes fill in.

Use Recordings count (1) to see how many recordings are on the visit, the recording marked Ready (2) in the list, Transcript (3) for the conversation, speaker-labelled turns (4) for the clinician and patient back and forth, and Export (5) to download the transcript. The Recordings pane lists each recording — e.g. "Main visit · Onsite recording · [date] · Ready." The Transcript pane shows the conversation broken into speaker-attributed turns with timestamps: the clinician's questions and the patient's answers, each labelled and timed. Export downloads the transcript.

The transcript is the bridge between the conversation and the chart. In a recorded visit, the clinician asking "How long has it been like that?" and the patient answering "For the last 4 periods" both appear here — and that same content flows into the note the AI drafts.

From recording to note and chart

Open a visit first: in the left sidebar, click Visits, then click the visit. The recording doesn't sit in isolation — it feeds the rest of the visit:

• Notes — with a recording present, Generate note drafts from what was said, filling the template's placeholders with real content rather than "N/A" (see Reviewing and signing an AI-drafted note). This is the difference between a note that writes itself and one you fill in by hand.
• Summary — the visit summary draws on the same source.
• The chart — details surfaced in the conversation inform the structured record.

So the single act of recording the visit is what makes the AI documentation useful. A visit with no recording gives the note generator nothing to work from; a recorded one gives it the whole conversation.

Consent and recording

Recording a clinical conversation may carry consent obligations depending on your jurisdiction and whether the visit is telehealth. The consent library includes a Telehealth Consent template for exactly this (see Building consents), and consents can be attached to services so they're sent automatically when a recorded service is booked. Make recording consent part of your intake rather than an afterthought.

In short

Turn recording on for visits you want captured, in person or on video. Ona transcribes it into a speaker-labelled record, and that transcript is what turns AI note generation from a template shell into a real draft. If a recording is interrupted, Ona can bring it back from browser storage when you return. The less you type during the visit, the more the recording earns its keep.

Use Ready to record (1) for the idle status, and Start recording (2) to begin capturing the visit.