Patient Sues Sharp Healthcare Over Ambient AI Recording

Patient Sues Sharp Healthcare Over Ambient AI Recording

A patient has initiated a proposed class action lawsuit against San Diego-based Sharp Healthcare for allegedly using ambient AI technology during his clinical visit without obtaining consent. The case, reported by KPBS Public Media, centers around the use of Abridge’s ambient clinical documentation app, which recorded the conversation between the patient and his doctor during a routine checkup.

Details of the Lawsuit

The plaintiff, Jose Saucedo, claims that during his appointment at Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group in July, his conversation was recorded without his knowledge. Abridge, the company behind the technology, provides an enterprise-grade AI platform that transforms medical discussions into clinically functional and billable documentation at the point of care, partnering with numerous healthcare systems across the country.

The lawsuit alleges that the recordings obtained during Saucedo's July appointment contained "individually identifiable medical information, such as symptoms, diagnoses, medications, treatment plans, and personal identifiers," which unauthorized vendor personnel could have accessed and reviewed.

Saucedo maintains that he was unaware he was being recorded and was never given the option to consent or opt out. He discovered the recordings existed only after reading his medical notes from the appointment.

Allegations of Improper Practices

According to KPBS, the complaint also alleges that Abridge automatically inserted incorrect statements into medical records, indicating that patients had been informed the visits were being recorded and had consented to those recordings, even in cases where the patient stated this never happened.

In California, all parties must give consent before confidential conversations are recorded. The lawsuit contends that Sharp never obtained written authorization or allowed patients to opt out of being recorded. It further alleges that Sharp "lacked a functional deletion-on-demand process to stop vendor processing and confirm deletion of audio files and transcripts across all systems at a patient's request."

The plaintiff contacted the clinic, which apologized and acknowledged that the recording had occurred, but indicated that the file could remain on the vendor's servers for roughly a month before being deleted.

The plaintiff's attorneys allege that these unauthorized recordings violate California privacy laws as well as the state's Confidentiality of Medical Information Act, which requires a court order or written authorization before sharing information from a medical record with a third party.

The plaintiff is seeking damages and corrections to the medical records. He is also requesting a court order barring use of the AI tool without proper patient consent, alleging that more than 100,000 Sharp patients may have been recorded without consent.

Neither Sharp Healthcare nor the plaintiff's law firm, Counterpoint Legal, immediately responded to a request for comment.

What This Means for Clinics

For clinics adopting ambient AI documentation, this case underscores that the technology's efficiency gains cannot come at the expense of a defensible consent workflow. Under all-party consent regimes like California's, and under medical-privacy statutes more broadly, obtaining and recording explicit patient consent before any capture begins is not optional.

Practices should establish a clear consent step at check-in or before the encounter, document each patient's choice, and make opt-out straightforward. Equally important is a working deletion-on-demand process: clinics need to be able to halt vendor processing and confirm that audio and transcripts are purged across every system when a patient requests it. Vendor agreements should specify data-retention windows and deletion guarantees, and staff should never rely on auto-generated consent language that may not reflect what actually happened in the room.

Conclusion

This case raises important questions about the use of AI in healthcare and respect for patient privacy. The court's decision could carry significant implications for how similar technologies are deployed going forward, and it is a timely reminder that consent, transparency, and auditable data controls belong at the core of any ambient documentation rollout.

Source: Patient files lawsuit against Sharp Healthcare for ambient AI use - MobiHealthNews