Research · 2026
The documents nobody has studied take an hour each.
The Documentation Minute · Aisel Research, 2026
We timed 202 documentation tasks across eight psychiatric clinics in Denmark and the UK, spanning 16 document types. The time is concentrated in long-form reports - Mental Health Act, medico-legal and court documents at 46 to 57 minutes each. AI assistance has been evaluated on the consultation note only: in the published literature, and in our own data. This paper locates the target. The next one tests it.
Open access · No email required to read
Declaration
This analysis was conducted by Aisel, which develops one of the tools evaluated. The dataset, methods and limitations are published in full so readers can weigh the findings accordingly.
The centrepiece
Where the time goes.
Sixteen document types were timed across eight clinics. Each row below shows the mean unassisted time and the number of entries it was drawn from. Rows drawn from fewer than five entries are shown as provisional.
| Task | Mean minutes | Sample size | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mental Health Act report | 57.1 | 7 | indicative |
| Medico-legal report | 49.5 | 5 | indicative |
| Court report | 46.2 | 2 | provisional |
| Risk assessment | 45.0 | 1 | provisional |
| Benefits report | 44.5 | 5 | indicative |
| Discharge summary | 24.9 | 27 | robust |
| Certificate | 17.5 | 2 | provisional |
| Referral letter | 15.5 | 25 | robust |
| Clinical letter to GP | 14.6 | 17 | robust |
| Clinical notes | 14.5 | 43 | robust |
| Clinic letter | 13.8 | 2 | provisional |
| Status certificate | 12.5 | 2 | provisional |
| Advice and guidance | 10.0 | 1 | provisional |
| Medication passport | 7.0 | 1 | provisional |
| Medical certificate (sick leave) | 5.2 | 4 | provisional |
| FIT note | 4.9 | 8 | indicative |
Of 23 studies in the most recent systematic review, 20 evaluated only the post-consultation note. The report types at the top of this chart appeared in none. They do not appear in our own AI-assisted data either. That is what this programme of work exists to close.
The gap
One task studied. Fifteen left standing.
What has been evaluated
- Clinical notes (consultation)14.5 min
What has not
- Mental Health Act report57.1 min
- Medico-legal report49.5 min
- Court report46.2 min
- Benefits report44.5 min
- Discharge summary24.9 min
These documents follow statutory or pro-forma structures that language models handle well. They also demand synthesis across long clinical histories and carry legal consequences if summarised inaccurately.
Which factor dominates - the structure that AI is good at, or the synthesis and consequence that make errors costly - is unknown. It has not been studied.
Clinical notes - the one task with data on both sides
14.5 minutes to 5.5 minutes.
Only one document type in our dataset has enough matched entries to compare unassisted and assisted times. It is the same task almost all the published literature has looked at.
Means
14.5 → 5.5 min
62% reduction
Medians
10.0 → 5.0 min
50% reduction · more representative given the skewed distribution
How to read this figure
- The assisted entries come from a single clinic and were stopwatch-timed.
- 39 of the 43 unassisted entries are retrospective estimates from other clinics.
- Retrospective estimates tend to run high.
- This is an observational cross-site comparison, not a controlled trial, and does not establish that AI assistance caused the difference.
An independent NHS child and adolescent psychiatry pilot reported AI-assisted documentation at 45% of manual time (median 27 → 10 min). Stanton et al., BJPsych Open 2025 - a conference abstract reviewed by the RCPsych Academic Faculty, not peer-reviewed.
Why this matters
Four consequences, honestly tagged.
Clinical scalability
Documentation time is measured directly here, and it is the resource that competes with patient contact. How much converts into additional appointments is not measured.
Supported by this data
Staff wellbeing
Documentation burden is one of the most consistent predictors of clinician burnout in the published literature. This dataset measures time, not wellbeing.
Hypothesis from published mechanisms
Service economics
Medico-legal and report work is among the best-paid clinic work; preparation time is the bottleneck.
Hypothesis from published mechanisms
Patient experience
Faster documentation is associated with more attention returned to the room; direct evidence is limited in psychiatry.
Hypothesis from published mechanisms
Limitations
A real one, not a disclaimer.
- Observational cross-site design. No randomisation and no controlled counterfactual. Differences between clinics may explain some of the observed effect.
- Measurement method is confounded with condition. Assisted entries are stopwatch-timed; most unassisted entries are retrospective estimates. The two are not directly comparable.
- Clustering. Assisted entries come from a small number of clinicians at one site; the effective sample is smaller than the raw n implies.
- No entry dates. We cannot control for time-of-day, day-of-week or learning curves.
- Convenience sample. Clinics were recruited through Aisel's clinical network. They are not necessarily representative of psychiatric services overall.
- Author conflict of interest. Aisel develops one of the tools evaluated. Findings should be read with that in view.
What comes next
What this paper is for.
Mapping where the time goes was the prerequisite. The documents at the top of that chart - medico-legal, Mental Health Act and benefits reports - have not been evaluated with AI assistance by anyone, including us. That evaluation is the study we are running now.
GDPR-compliant. We send the study and nothing else unless you opt in.
Full paper
The Documentation Minute: A Multi-Site Analysis of Time Spent on Clinical Documentation in Psychiatry, and the Effect of AI-Assisted Notetaking.
Download the PDF - charts, tables and references included.
Cite this
Svalberg, L. K. (2026). The Documentation Minute: A Multi-Site Analysis of Time Spent on Clinical Documentation in Psychiatry, and the Effect of AI-Assisted Notetaking. Aisel Health. https://www.aisel.co/research/documentation-burden-psychiatry
Aisel is built for the documents at the top of that chart.