Ontario's AI Scribe Programme — Auditor General Finds 9 of 20 Approved Clinical Note-Taking Systems Fabricated Content

Ontario's AI Scribe programme, run through Supply Ontario with the Ministry of Health and OntarioMD, approved 20 vendor systems that transcribe patient visits and draft clinical notes. The Ministry of Health says more than 5,000 Ontario physicians participate, and OntarioMD attributes paperwork-time reductions of 70-90% to such tools (a programme claim from an earlier report).
In a special report on AI use in government tabled on 12 May 2026, the Auditor General of Ontario reviewed the vendor evaluation, which used simulated doctor-patient recordings compared against source material by medical professionals. Of the 20 systems, 9 fabricated information (for example invented referrals, test orders or findings such as 'no masses'), 12 recorded a different drug than the one prescribed, and 17 missed key mental-health details in at least one test (6 in both tests).
The audit also found that the procurement scoring gave 30% weight to a domestic Ontario presence but 4% to note accuracy, 2% to bias controls and 2% to threat, risk and privacy assessments; vendor test results were not validated, live demonstrations were limited, and none of the approved products required clinician sign-off attestation. The report made ten recommendations (five to the Ministry, five to Supply Ontario), including higher weights and minimum pass marks for accuracy, bias and security, mandatory live demonstrations, annual SOC 2 Type 2 reports and attestation controls.
The Ministry agreed to its recommendations and Supply Ontario agreed or partly agreed to theirs. The Minister said hallucinations arose in testing, not in operational use; the Ministry knows of no patient harm. Evidence limits: findings come from simulated recordings, not clinical outcomes, and no real-world error rates are published. The case is valuable as a transparent audit of how procurement weighting can let accuracy defects through.

Read the full analysis: https://www.hrreporter.com/focus-areas/automation-ai/ai-systems-for-ontario-doctors-hallucinate-auditor-general/394430