AI Policy

Updated: 6 January 2026

Brad McLean Consulting’s commitment to the legal, ethical and responsible use of AI:

1.1. Brad McLean Consulting (“us”, “we” or “our”) is committed to using AI to improve the mental health outcomes of patients, in a way that is legal, ethical and responsible.

1.2. The purpose of this AI Policy is to create a set of guiding principles that comply with the legal and ethical obligations that govern the responsible use of AI tools by clinicians.

1.3. Brad McLean Consulting take the privacy of clients’ and supervisees’ information seriously, and our Privacy Policy sets out how we collect and treat your Personal Information and Sensitive Information. Our Privacy Policy and this AI Policy operate together.

1.4. This AI Policy deals with both the general principles Brad McLean Consulting is committed to to ensure the legal, ethical and responsible adoption and use of AI tools, as well as guidelines for the AI tools used by Brad McLean Consulting to ensure the use of those tools is of benefit to clients and promotes psychotherapy and supervision practice while protecting client and supervisee data and information.

Definitions

In this Policy:

2.1. “AI” stands for artificial intelligence and refers to the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behaviour.

2.2. “AI tool” describes any software program that uses AI to perform tasks.

2.3. “Large language model” or “LLM” is a type of artificial intelligence model designed to understand, generate or manipulate human language. They are trained on very large amounts of text data and use statistics and machine learning techniques to generate text based on the input they receive.

2.4. “Generative AI” is a type of machine learning model that generates new content (for example, text, images, videos, etc) as outputs.

Brad McLean Consulting’s Statement of Values and Ethics in the Use of AI

3.1. Brad McLean Consulting believes that with appropriate policies in place, AI can support the delivery of quality psychotherapy and supervision and may contribute to improving the therapeutic and supervisory relationship.

3.2. Brad McLean Consulting believes that human-delivered care must never be replaced by AI, but that AI has the potential to assist in care delivery and improve client outcomes. AI is seen by Brad McLean Consulting as a means to achieving the goal of enhancing the therapeutic and supervision relationship, but it can only support the psychotherapist and client or supervisee to reach this goal.

3.3. Enhancing the provision of psychotherapy and counselling to clients and supervisees will always be the primary and guiding focus of the adoption of all AI tools by Brad McLean Psychotherapy and Counselling. AI tools will only be adopted by Brad McLean Consulting, where they will genuinely contribute to improving the potential outcomes for patients.

3.4. The adoption and implementation of all AI tools by Brad McLean Consulting will be client-centred and used to benefit clients for their enhanced well-being.

3.5. AI must never compromise the clinician’s clinical independence or professional autonomy.

3.6. A registered health practitioner or otherwise appropriately qualified clinician must always be ultimately responsible for decisions and communications and should have meaningful involvement at all stages of the client’s and supervisee’s journey.

3.7. All AI tools implemented by Brad McLean Consulting must uphold and support the client’s and supervisee’s rights to make their own informed healthcare decisions.

3.8. It is important to Brad McLean Consulting to be accountable and transparent to clients, the mental health and health professions and the wider community about the use of AI in supporting clients’ therapeutic outcomes.

3.9. The application of AI in mental health care must never lead to greater health inequalities for any population.

3.10. Patients and supervisees have the right to refuse to be involved in the use of AI at any time.

3.11. AI tools will only be adopted by Brad McLean Consulting after first establishing robust and effective frameworks for managing risks, which ensure client and supervisee safety and guarantee the privacy of all involved. These frameworks will be bespoke to the AI tool being adopted, and regularly and vigorously reviewed.

3.12. Brad McLean Consulting will never establish protocols where the clinical independence of the clinician is undermined by AI, or the final decision is made by a person in a non-clinical role with the aid of AI.

3.13. AI tools will not be used by administrative (non-clinical) staff.

Use of the patient’s data and information

4.1. As outlined in our Privacy Policy, Brad McLean Consulting may receive and store your Data.

4.2. Brad McLean Consulting is committed to the protection of the privacy of patient health information.

4.3. Brad McLean Consulting will always use AI in accordance with the Privacy Policy in place at the relevant time.

4.4. Brad McLean Consulting will only adopt and use AI tools following a careful review of that tool’s approach to privacy and has adopted a protocol of regularly checking the tool to ensure there has been no material change to the way client data and information is stored, used and deleted.

4.5. AI tools will not be used to disclose a client’s or a supervisee’s personal or sensitive information without written consent from the client.

4.6. The disclosure of Health Information must be limited to initiatives that exclusively aim to provide the mental health service to the client and/or improve the client’s mental health outcomes.

Complaints about our AI policy

5.1. If you have any complaints about our AI practices, please feel free to send in details of your complaints to:

Brad McLean at bmctherapy@protonmail.com

5.2. We take complaints very seriously and will respond shortly after receiving written notice of your complaint.

Changes to our AI policy

6.1. Our AI Policy is subject to change.

6.2. Brad McLean Consulting may modify this policy at any time, in our sole discretion, and all modifications will be effective immediately upon our posting of the modifications on our website www.bradmclean.com.au or through distribution by email or via the Carepatron practice management system. Please check back from time to time to review our AI Policy.

Current AI tools in use

7.1. Brad McLean Consulting will maintain a list of AI tools in regular use by its clinicians.

7.2. At present, Brad McLean Consulting uses:

- NovoNote AI Scribe/NovoPsych Clinical Assessments;

7.3. A summary of each AI tool adopted and how it is used is set out below.

NovoNote AI Scribe/NovoPsych Clinical Assessments

A. What NovoNote/NovoPsych does:

NovoNote and NoVo Psych work together as a single ecosystem: NovoNote handles AI-assisted note-taking from your spoken word or live sessions, and AI generates notes or reports from the live recording of the psychotherapy or supervision session, while NovoPsych manages psychometric assessment delivery, scoring, and outcome monitoring within the same platform. NovoNote and NovoPsych have other capabilities in addition.

B. Why NovoNote/NovoPsych has been adopted:

NovoNote enhances the quality of clinical notes for therapy sessions and supervision sessions by recording all relevant information during a consultation, allowing the clinician to be more focused on the client or supervisee and the therapeutic relationship without having to take notes in the session. This promotes the therapeutic relationship and also enhances the quality of notes by increasing the reliability and accuracy, which the clinician edits and checks at the end of the session. NovoPsych offers the opportunity for more comprehensive initial and ongoing assessment of clients using validated tools. Combined, these should improve the focus and presence of my work and the quality of my work for my clients. NovoNote and NovoPsych AI will also reduce the time spent by the practitioner (Brad McLean) in preparing records following the consultation, which will instead be allocated to a larger focus on treatment planning and preparation for psychotherapy and supervision.

C. What NovoNote/NovoPsych will be used for:

Recording clinical notes, treatment plans and reports (NovoNote) and administration of clinical assessment tools when required at the discretion of the clinician (NovoPsych).

D. What NovoNote/NovoPsych will not be used for:

NovoNote/NovoPsych cannot and will not be used to make clinical decisions in relation to client care, and it will not be accessible or used by administrative (non-clinical) staff. Efforts have been made to ensure careful consideration and high standards have been applied in the decision to adopt NovoNote/NovoPsych, in accordance with the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia’s ethical and practice considerations and ensuring compliance with the Australian Privacy Principles and clinical practice standards. All clinical decisions will be made by the clinician and not by AI. Notes generated by NovoNote AI will not be included as part of the client’s file without a review by the clinician.

E. Written consent:

NovoNote/NovoPsych will only be used with clients who have provided written consent for the use.

F. Accountability:

The clinician (Brad McLean) using NovoNote AI will be responsible for finalising the notes generated by NovoNote AI. That is, the notes will not be automatically saved to the client’s file but will be reviewed for accuracy and completeness by the practitioner, who is responsible for the client’s records.

The clinician will be responsible for all reviews, compliance and management of compliance and annual review of the expected documentation, policies and procedures for ethical use of NovoNote/NovoPsych at Brad McLean Psychotherapy and Counselling.

G. Risk mitigation strategies:

In the unlikely event of a data breach involving NovoNote AI, I will promptly contain the incident, investigate what information was affected, and follow the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), including notifying affected clients and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner where there is a risk of serious harm. NovoNote is operated by NovoPsych, which stores encrypted notes and transcripts on secure Australian servers and has its own formal breach notification process, but as data controller for my practice, I also maintain strong local safeguards (device security, access controls, and regular review of my privacy and AI use policies) to minimise the risk and impact of any breach.

H. Transparency:

For internal record-keeping purposes, content created with the assistance of NovoNote AI will be labelled as such, by including a note similar to the following: “Case notes have been created with the use of NovoNote AI, reviewed and adopted by Brad McLean.”

I. Data storage by NovoNote AI:

NovoNote AI, which is owned by NovoPsych, will store a recording of the client consultation or practitioner’s dictation on local servers in Australia. Although the data can be stored for longer periods of time, Brad McLean Consulting will set a mandatory timeframe for all temporary AI-generated data to be deleted within 7 business days. NovoNote AI has been carefully selected by Brad McLean Consulting as it complies with the Australian Privacy legislation and the Australian Privacy Principles.

J. Authorised Use:

Only Brad McLean will have access to and use NovoNote AI, and any administrative staff will not use the tool and will not have access to the system.

K. Assessment and Review schedule:

Brad McLean Consulting is committed to a regular assessment and review of the adoption and use of NovoNote AI. In addition to the contemporaneous review of every note generated by NovoNote AI, Brad McLean Consulting will conduct a comprehensive review every six months, intended to confirm that this AI Policy is being adhered to, that the information contained in the AI policy is correct and up-to-date, and that the notes generated after consultations are both accurate and complete.

Contact us

If you have any questions relating to privacy matters, please contact us by email: bmctherapy@protonmail.com or by phone on +61 405 019 508.