A Pittsburgh-based startup that provides automated notetaking services for medical professionals using transcription technology powered by generative artificial intelligence is celebrating the first enterprisewide deployment of its technology.
Abridge AI Inc. announced that its new partnership with Emory Healthcare, based in Atlanta, will see its tech made available to over 3,000 clinicians across 425 locations over the next three years.
To help roll this tech out, Abridge also announced its partnership with Epic, a software firm for the medical industry, which can bring Abridge's transcription offerings to clinical workflows that already rely on Epic's software. It comes as part of Epic's "Partners and Pals" program, of which Abridge is the first "pal" or startup to join.
In an email statement to Pittsburgh Inno, Abridge Co-Founder and CEO Dr. Shiv Rao said the deals with Emory and Epic are generating revenue for the startup, though he did not share specific figures.
As for the Emory partnership, it marks the first agreement with a health care provider that didn't originally evolve from a pilot program, as was the case for the deployment of Abridge's tech for clinicians who work for the University of Kansas Health System and UPMC, the two other health care providers where Abridge has seen its tech made available.
Rao said thousands of clinicians are now using Abridge's technology, which he initially built to help alleviate burnout in the medical field and to give health care professionals more time to spend with patients.
Abridge's tech records and transcribes doctor-patient conversations in real time. It then aggregates and organizes the medical-related information shared during that conversation into a streamlined document while ignoring any off-topic or medically-irrelevant conversations the two parties might have during the process. Clinicians can then review the notes that Abridge transcribed and scour them for inaccuracies, if any, instead of writing the notes from scratch following a conversation with a patient.
"Virtually none of the technologies at the core of legacy scribe solutions — and very often the need for additional labor-based processing and quality control — are relevant in the era of generative AI," Rao said. "We have had significant advantages starting from a clean sheet. Our team includes some of the world’s leading experts on the responsible use of AI in health care, including professors from Carnegie Mellon [University], and key hires from Meta and Amazon AI."
