Pittsburgh's near-unicorn tech company Abridge is expanding its platform that has previously only served doctors to now serve nurses.
The East Liberty-based company, which is currently valued at approximately $850 million, provides health systems with a service that transcribes conversations between clinicians and their patients using generative AI. The company is backed by Nvidia, one of the most valuable companies in the world by market cap and the world's biggest AI computational technology producer, and has expanded across several health systems this year. The service is provided in partnership with Epic, which patients may know as the parent company behind MyChart.
"The extension of our platform with a dedicated nursing product that works inside Epic inpatient workflows will help address the growing administrative burden on nurses across the country," Abridge CEO Dr. Shiv Rao said in a prepared statement.
The Mayo Clinic, one of the top-rated health systems in the world, will be the first system to offer the technology to nurses. Feedback provided from the initial launch will influence the design of the platform for a wider release. Ryannon Frederick, Mayo Clinic chief nursing officer, said in a prepared statement that "at the center of this collaboration is Mayo Clinic nursing staff."
"We are engaging them directly in the development of this technology to ensure its use meets the unique needs of nursing and patient care workflows along with regulatory requirement for ambient solutions," Frederick said in a prepared statement. "We are thrilled to bring the knowledge and expertise of our nursing staff to help shape the future of documentation, where documentation could happen automatically and organically."
Abridge rose to its near billion dollar evaluation alongside a significant boom in investments to artificial intelligence across both the international technology sector and local market. Following that boom, some investors and members of the finance community are suggesting that a pullback is likely. Goldman Sachs recently publishing a report entitled "Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit?" which argues, among other things, that "chips will indeed constrain AI growth over the next few years, with demand for chips outstripping supply."
For Abridge, a company that a spokesperson previously said deploys in a new health system "almost every week," access to chips is pivotal. By having a direct connection to the world's biggest chipmaker, the company is positioned to potentially circumvent supply issues.
