What is the Heidi dictation app?

Heidi is an AI scribe used by clinicians. It records a patient consultation and drafts the note, and it also has a Dictate feature for people who want to speak the text themselves. Heidi Dictate runs in the Heidi Desktop app. You hold one key, speak, and the text appears where your cursor is. Most of what we could verify comes from the vendor's own pages, so use the claims below as a starting point for a trial, not as measured results.

Heidi is an AI scribe first, and dictation is one of its modes

Heidi's main product records the consultation and writes a clinical note from it. The vendor's UK blog gives its scale as 70,000 clinicians, 15 NHS trusts and 1,200 or more GP practices ¹. We could not check those figures against NHS records, so treat them as the vendor's claim.

Dictate is a separate way to use Heidi. You speak, and it writes the text. That is closer to the dictation tools covered in our dictation software hub, and it is different from an ambient scribe that listens without being asked. The difference matters for consent and for what the tool keeps, so check both modes before you use either one with patients.

What Heidi Dictate says it does

The Dictate product page describes the core workflow. Its text reads: "Hold one key and speak. Heidi writes finished clinical text in your record, inbox, or any form" ². The desktop app is the part that goes beyond a browser. The page says that Heidi Desktop lets you "Dictate anywhere on your screen, capture telehealth audio straight from the call, and skip the second login" ³.

The page also claims that the tool is "Ready from your first visit, in 90+ languages" ⁴. That is a count of supported languages, not a measure of how well each one works for clinical words. Test the language you use most, with your own terms.

The page gives no error rates, no word-per-minute speeds and no comparison with other dictation tools. Those are the numbers that decide whether a tool saves time, so they have to come from your own test.

The plan limits come from the vendor's pricing table

Heidi's pricing page compares a Free plan with paid Clinician and Enterprise plans. Its feature table lists "Unlimited transcription" under Scribe features ⁵. The same table also marks some Scribe features as limited, so read each row against the plan you would buy.

Third-party listings we read describe the free plan differently from the vendor's own page, and we could not settle the difference from the sources. Prices also vary by country, so check the plan that applies to you on Heidi's site before you sign up.

It depends on who you are and where you practise

Heidi suits you if your work is a clinical note that you check and sign. It fits less well if the text is a document that needs routing, typing pools or a records integration that the free version lacks. The table below sorts the common cases.

For a general app that works in any program without a clinical template, see our free dictation software guide. For how specialist products differ from general apps, see the professional dictation guide.

What to do before you use it with patients

1. Install the desktop app from the vendor's download page, and test one dictation on a note that you do not need to file.
2. Count the corrections you make in the first ten minutes, and time how long a finished note takes to sign.
3. Read the vendor's privacy, security and compliance pages for your country, such as its HIPAA or UK GDPR statements, and ask for the terms in writing.
4. Check your employer's rules and local guidance on AI tools in clinical notes. The rules differ by country and by organization.

If you want a tool that you control completely, compare it with the dictation software hub, which lists every guide on this topic. For the Epic route, see whether Epic has built-in dictation. For radiology reporting, see what dictation software radiologists use. For how a scribe differs from dictation, see the guide to AI medical scribes.