How Mr Pheh Kai Shuen documents sessions across four languages
Heidi Team
28 September 2026•6 min read•
Mr Pheh Kai Shuen x Heidi at a glance
"How Malaysians code switch all the time, it's really something that's really difficult for other softwares. This is where Heidi really shines." — Mr Pheh Kai Shuen, Clinical Psychologist
Key outcomes:
Case notes that used to take two hours after a five o'clock finish, and skipped lunches, are no longer the routine
Code-switching between Mandarin, Cantonese, English and Malay captured in one record
Patient explainer lettersreplacing a handwritten keyword, giving clients and shocked parents something to read once they're ready
ADOS assessments backed by a second record of every verbalisation, alongside his own observations
Current guidelines checked mid-session on presentations he rarely sees, contextualised to Malaysia
Read on if you might also be experiencing:
Clinic finishing on time, then an hour or two of notes on top of it
Clients who can't hold onto what was discussed once they leave the room
Sessions that move between three or four languages in one conversation
Diagnostic disclosures where the family absorbs only a fraction of what you said
Background
Mr Pheh Kai Shuen is a clinical psychologist at Pantai Hospital in Ipoh, with close to 13 years in practice. His caseload splits into two groups. The first is adults with depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions, many of whom also carry some degree of cognitive impairment. The second is children with neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism and intellectual disability, where he runs full diagnostic assessments and then sits with parents to explain the result.
Both groups make documentation carry more weight than usual. What he writes down often becomes the only version of the session the client still has next week.
Challenges
Clinic finished at five, The notes did not
Mr Pheh finished his clinic by five most days, then stayed on an hour or two to write up the day's case notes, depending on the complexity of the cases. Lunch went the same way.
"Sometimes I skip my lunch to write down the most important things." — Mr Pheh Kai Shuen
Writing later carried a cost beyond the hours themselves. There were times important information fell out between the session and the page.
Clients who could not hold onto the session
Many of his mental health clients carry some degree of cognitive impairment alongside their presenting condition. What wasn't written down rarely made it to the next session.
"The discussion contents would be gone probably two hours after the sessions." — Mr Pheh Kai Shuen
His workaround was handwritten notes to take home, but a keyword only goes so far, especially against his own handwriting. Clients would return the following week with no memory of what was covered.
Parents in shock at the moment of disclosure
The same problem shows up sharper with parents, at the point he discloses a diagnosis. Probably eight out of ten are in a state of shock, absorbing only ten or twenty percent of what he's told them, and a month or two later they'd return with no recollection of the intervention plan or what they needed to prepare. He understands exactly why.
"Someone telling you that your child has autism, and that's a lifelong condition, that's not the best news in the world." — Mr Pheh Kai Shuen
Solution
Heidi now sits underneath both problems: the case notes, and what the client or parent walks away with.
A second pair of ears in the assessment room
Mr Pheh still runs ADOS on his own templates. The assessment leans heavily on visual observation, which sits outside anything a transcript can reach, so he treats Heidi as a backup record rather than his primary one. After nearly 13 years, he still attends ADOS training workshops to keep his own administration and scoring accurate, which is what made the output notable to him: the client's verbalisations came back captured and categorised alongside his own notes.
"What Heidi provides was rather impressive." — Mr Pheh Kai Shuen
Malaysian code-switching, transcribed
"I'm really happy that Heidi actually captured that." — Mr Pheh Kai Shuen
His Chinese-speaking clients mix Mandarin with Cantonese and English, dropping a Malay word in mid-sentence. Other scribe tools he'd tried misread those words as something else entirely. He needs only a minor edit afterward to make sure it reflects what clients actually said.
The patient explainer letter
The template that changed the most for him is the one his clients take home. It replaces the handwritten keyword with the session written out in full. For the client with cognitive impairment, it's the skill he taught them, on paper. For parents who stopped absorbing anything after the word autism, it's the plan and the next steps, waiting for them when they're ready to read it.
"That has been something that's extremely helpful for lots of patients." — Mr Pheh Kai Shuen
Checking current guidelines mid-session
Heidi Evidence covers the presentations he sees rarely, the ones he hasn't had reason to read up on in a year or two.
"Most importantly, it's always contextualised to the Malaysian context, Malaysian situations." — Mr Pheh Kai Shuen
His example is Malaysia's new anti-bullying law, passed recently enough that clinicians are still working out what it covers and when mandatory reporting applies.
Impact
The hour or two after clinic is the obvious change, but the lunch break is the one he raised first. Better lunch times meant better coffee from the hospital's own shops instead of the vending machine, which he says changed how he performed for the rest of the day.
Going home earlier is the part his family notices most.
"I think that means a lot to my family members." — Mr Pheh Kai Shuen
The clearest read on what that's worth came from his wife, who offered to cover the cost herself.
"My wife was saying, how much would Heidi cost you per month, and I'm going to cover that cost for you." — Mr Pheh Kai Shuen
It's the same shift running through the whole piece. The hour after clinic, the lunch break, the evening at home, all handed back because the notes no longer wait for a quiet moment that never used to come.
What's next
Two asks, both specific. The first is broader Chinese dialect coverage. Elderly clients occasionally arrive speaking dialects rather than Mandarin, and only a handful of psychologists in Ipoh can hold that conversation at all, which is often why they came to him. The second is scheduling, sending appointment reminders and handling the changes clients ask for, so the schedule and the notes move together rather than being managed by hand.
