Vassar College announced on Monday, Aug. 31, its rollout of a new electronic health records system (EHR) operated by Point and Click Solutions, which includes an optional artificial intelligence (AI) notetaking service. In light of the switch, some students raised concerns about the College’s communication with the student body and the platform’s AI features.
Vassar’s previous health portal platform was run by Medicat, which had held the contract for over a decade. That deal was set to expire on June 30, 2026, according to Director of Health Service Margot Schinella. “Medicat upgraded their product with us in January 2026, however, the updated version was not user friendly, lacked enhancements that other vendors offered and did not provide students with the optimal patient experience,” wrote Schinella. “Feedback from students identified that the patient portal and self-check-in features were outdated and challenging for them to use.”
The main complaint among students surrounding Medicat was not about functionality, but user access. “The interface was kind of shit,” River Hamm ’29 said, “but the way the actual system itself worked wasn’t terrible.” Another student, Chloe Fournier ’29, voiced similar concerns. “It was difficult to use,” Fournier said of the Medicat system, adding that if she needed assistance she had to call the Health Service office directly.
Before settling on Point and Click Solutions, Health Service staff consulted with peer institutions, including Columbia University, Oklahoma State University and the University of Arkansas, according to Schinella. “Point and Click Solutions is widely considered one of the best EHR programs for college health as it aligns with best practice guidelines and industry standards,” Schinella told The Miscellany News.
The new system is web-based and hosted on the vendor’s servers. “This was also the case with Medicat and this model has worked well for us over the past decade,” Schinella explained. In the new Point and Click Solutions portal, students must re-sign and, in some cases, re-file their health paperwork, which seems to have only been announced in one email from the Health Service on Aug. 31. Schinella clarified in an email after publication: “In the new system, upper class students are now able to sign documents that were previously not available electronically, such as the privacy policy, and these forms will post annually to every student’s portal for a renewed signature, as is the standard in most medical practices.” Students who spoke to The Miscellany News for this piece felt the College did not properly inform the student body of the change.
When asked about the administration’s communication about the new health portal, Hamm responded, “It was horrible.” Hamm says he only heard about the change through a friend on a sports team. “This is something that you should send several emails about. It’s atrocious you’re barely telling me about this, especially when the school year’s already started, with the intensity of classes and the host of other things going on,” Hamm said.
Students also raised concerns about aspects of the new system itself. Point and Click offers an AI note-taking tool, which nurses and nurse practitioners can use during appointments only after asking and receiving a patient’s consent.
“This AI feature aligns with existing frameworks like HIPAA [the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act], ensuring data minimization and strict purpose limitation and only assists in the note composition,” explained Schinella. “It does not offer diagnoses, place orders or determine treatment plans.”
Each student appeared most animated when speaking about the new tool. Offloading note-taking, students worried, risks eroding the one-on-one relationship between patients and providers. “At what point are you talking to the nurse, and at what point are you talking to this robot?” Krisha Jeevarathnam ’28 asked about the AI notetaker. She noted, however, that when she recently shadowed a neurologist at Albany Medical Center, they used a similar transcription tool. “How do we know that this is definitely going to pick up on the exact words I’m saying?” worried Jeevarathnam.
A 2025 report in npj Digital Medicine found that AI speech recognition systems have a seven to 11 percent higher error rate than human professionals in the medical field. According to a Stanford University Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence report, AI tools have also been known to fabricate information and can fail to mark down critical information. “Even a small percentage of errors can have profound implications for patient safety,” the Stanford report noted.
After publication, Schinella clarified again via email: “Also of note, nurses are not provided with permissions for use of the AI notetaking tool. It is strictly for the provider’s use and is to be used at their discretion and with patient consent as was previously mentioned in my responses.”
Only one of the six students to whom the Miscellany spoke said they would give consent for AI to be used during an appointment.
[Correction (Sept. 19, 2026): Director of Health Service Margot Schinella provided additional details after publication about the Medicat system’s document signing and AI notetaking tools. Those details have been added.]