Heidi Team
"Instead of spending hours writing notes after clinic, I now usually only need to make minor edits before the documentation is complete." — Dr Annie Liau, Paediatrician
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Dr Annie Liau is a Consultant Paediatrician at Columbia Asia Hospital - Klang, in Malaysia, with a special interest in Autism and developmental conditions in children. It's some of the most documentation-heavy work in medicine. Diagnosis rests largely on observation rather than a scan or a blood test, so each case means lengthy history-taking with parents, a developmental assessment of the child, and a careful record of behaviour and concerns.
A single session runs at least an hour and a half, often two. It's rarely still: Dr Annie moves from her desk to a smaller table to work with the child, sometimes following an active toddler around the room while she talks with the parents. Every case then generates its own stack of paperwork, from clinical notes to referral letters and reports for intervention centres, therapists and schools. Dr Annie uses Heidi on her own subscription, capturing sessions on her phone rather than through a hospital deployment.
"I have endless paperwork and I'm struggling with my time. I come back and I have to do my paperwork, because I don't have time to do it in the clinic." — Dr Annie Liau
The client-facing day was already full. Sessions this detailed don't leave gaps to write in, so the documentation went where it always goes: into the evenings, after clinic, at home.
"The massive amount of documentation and paperwork after each clinic session was physically and mentally exhausting. It often took several hours after clinic to complete my notes, referral letters and reports." — Dr Annie Liau
By her own description, she was at the brink of exhaustion with the paperwork, despite a deep passion for the clinical work itself.
A developmental assessment is dynamic and hard to capture cleanly. Dr Annie’s caseload is mainly Mandarin-speaking, with Malay and English in the mix, and conversations move between languages inside a single session. On top of the volume, there was the worry any multilingual clinician knows: that subtle detail would slip when a one and a half to two-hour, multi-language session had to be turned into a written record.
Dr Annie had heard about AI scribes online. The push to try one came from a fellow Malaysian clinician she'd connected with on LinkedIn, who was writing openly about using AI in his own practice and recommended Heidi. She started on the free version, and it stuck.
"I got hooked, and I'm actually using the paid version now." — Dr Annie Liau
Her workflow is simple. She takes verbal consent, transcribes the session on her phone as she moves around the room, then reviews and edits the note before copying it into the hospital's electronic health record (EHR). The same session also gives her a starting point for the letters and reports each case needs.
What surprised her was how much held together across languages.
"I was pleasantly surprised by how well Heidi captured the essence of these complex sessions. Even when conversations switched between multiple languages, it was able to organise the information into coherent clinical documentation." — Dr Annie Liau
She puts the transcription at 80 to 90 percent accurate for Mandarin, with Malay holding up well too. For an observational, multilingual assessment, that's the difference between starting a note from a blank page and starting from a draft that already has the substance in it.
"It's a lifesaver for me, for sure." — Dr Annie Liau
The hours after clinic are the clearest change. Where a case used to mean starting the notes, letters and reports from scratch at home, Dr Annie now works from a draft that already holds the shape of the session.
"Instead of spending hours writing notes after clinic, I now usually only need to make minor edits before the documentation is complete. This has significantly reduced my documentation burden while allowing me to spend more time focusing on my patients, their families and the aspects of medicine that I truly enjoy." — Dr Annie Liau
That's the trade she wanted back. Not the clinical work, which she loves, but the invisible tax that came after it.
The one part of her setup that still fights her is movement. Following a child from desk to table with a phone in hand is workable, but not ideal, and it's where the odd session gets paused by accident. Heidi Remote is the fix she's after, and she's on the early-access list for when it reaches Asia.
She's also ready to point colleagues towards Heidi. As one of the first paediatricians she knows using it, she'd welcome more company, and hopes that one day the tool sits at the hospital level rather than coming out of a clinician's own pocket.
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