Digital Scribing

1. Introduction: Our Commitment to Your Care

 

At Authentic Self Psychology, our primary commitment is to provide you with focused, high-quality, and neuro-affirming psychological care. To enhance our sessions, we use a secure, AI-assisted digital scribing tool called Novo Note.

This document explains how Novo Note works, the benefits to your therapy, how we protect your privacy, and your rights. We are providing this detailed information to ensure your consent is fully informed, in line with our professional obligations under the Psychology Board of Australia's ‘Code of Conduct for Psychologists (2025)’, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA)’s ‘Guidance for registered health practitioners on artificial intelligence (2024)’ and in accordance with Australian privacy laws and regulations

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2. What is Novo Note and How Does it Work?

Novo Note is a digital scribing system that helps your psychologist create clinical notes. It does not make clinical decisions. Your psychologist remains fully responsible for your care and the final clinical record.
 

The process is simple and secure:

• Real-Time Transcription: During our session, Novo Note processes the audio in real-time to create a temporary, encrypted text transcript. The audio itself is never saved or stored.

• AI-Assisted Note Drafting: The system uses the de-identified transcript to generate a draft summary of the session. This process happens on secure servers located within Australia.

• Psychologist Review and Finalisation: Your psychologist carefully reviews, edits, and validates the draft note to ensure it is accurate, clinically appropriate, and reflects the session correctly. The final, official note is then transferred to your secure client file.

• Secure Deletion: Once the official note is finalised and saved in your client record, the temporary transcript and AI-generated draft within Novo Note are immediately and permanently deleted. This data is not retrievable.

 

3. The Benefits for You

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Using Novo Note allows us to enhance the quality of our therapeutic relationship and work.
 

• Enhanced Presence and Focus: By automating the initial note-taking, your psychologist can be more present and engaged in our conversation, focusing entirely on you and what you are sharing.

• A Neuro-Affirming Approach: Reducing the cognitive load of manual note-taking allows your psychologist to be more attuned to your communication style and needs. This is central to our neuro-affirming practice. It can also support the future option of providing you with accessible, client-friendly session summaries to help with integration and recall between sessions, which can be particularly helpful for neurotypes with varying processing needs.

• Improved Accuracy and Efficiency: This tool aids in capturing key details accurately, leading to high-quality clinical records. This efficiency allows your psychologist to dedicate more time to your care and professional development, rather than administrative tasks.

 

4. Your Privacy and Security: Our Priority

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Protecting your personal and health information is a legal and ethical obligation we take very seriously.
 

• Compliance with Australian Law: Our use of Novo Note and our management of your data are fully compliant with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). You can view our full Privacy Policy here: https://authenticselfpsychology.com.au/clinic-policies/clinic-privacy-policy/
   

• Novo Note’s Security Measures:

  • Australian Data Storage: All data is processed and stored on secure servers located exclusively within Australia

  • End-to-End Encryption: Your information is encrypted at all stages of the process

  • De-identification: The AI model processes de-identified data to generate notes.

  • No Third-Party Access or AI Training: Your data is never shared with third parties and is not used to train any AI models

 

For more information about the privacy and security measures Novo Note implements, please visit https://novopsych.com/novonote-security/
 

• Potential Risks and Mitigation: Whilst any digital system carries a theoretical risk of data breach, we minimise this risk through robust security measures. Our practice protocol of immediately and permanently deleting all data from Novo Note after each session ensures that the window of risk is virtually non-existent.

 

5. Professional Responsibility and Ethical Considerations

 

Our use of this technology is guided by strict professional and ethical frameworks.
 

• Professional Accountability: In line with AHPRA's guidance, your psychologist is always accountable for the final clinical record. The AI is a tool; the clinical judgment, responsibility, and duty of care remains entirely with the human practitioner.

• Ethical Guidelines: We adhere to the good practice guidelines of the Australian Association of Psychologists Inc (AAPi).

• Broader AI Ethics: We are committed to ‘Australia's 8 AI Ethics Principles’ (2023) developed by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, ensuring our use of AI is fair, transparent, and beneficial. We also acknowledge the environmental and ethical considerations of using advanced technology and are committed to its responsible implementation. See the full list of principles here: https://www.industry.gov.au/publications/australias-artificial-intelligence-ethics-principles/australias-ai-ethics-principles

 

6. Your Right to Choose: Informed Consent

Your participation is entirely voluntary. You have the right to make an informed choice about the use of Novo Note in your sessions.
 

• If you consent: You agree to the process described above.

• If you do not consent: Your psychologist will take notes manually. Your decision will not affect the quality of care you receive in any way.

• Withdrawing Consent: You can withdraw your consent at any time—before, during, or after a session—by simply telling your psychologist. If you withdraw consent, any data from that session in Novo Note will be immediately and permanently deleted