Abridge, a startup that develops generative AI tools for medical documentation, inked another major health system partnership.
Christus Health, based in Irving, Texas, signed an enterprisewide technology agreement with Abridge after the health system piloted the technology over the past few months with primary care and specialist physicians.
The health system, which operates 600 care centers and has 15,000 physicians, tested out Abridge's gen AI-based technology earlier this year to study the impact of the solution on clinicians.
Christus Health began piloting the technology with a small group of ambulatory physicians in February, and a study showed a demonstrable impact on clinician well-being, according to Timothy Barker, M.D., system medical director and ambulatory chief medical information officer at Christus Health.
Clinicians now spend an average of 60% less time on documentation outside of work hours, enabling them to achieve a better work-life balance, the study found. Clinicians saw a 40% decrease in physician burnout rate since deploying Abridge based on the Mini Z Burnout Survey—an industry-validated measure of work-life and wellness in practicing physicians.
According to the internal study, there was a 41% increase in clinicians giving undivided attention to patients, resulting in improved communication and patient satisfaction.
Within a few months, Christus plans to make Abridge available to all ambulatory clinicians.
Pittsburgh-based Abridge, one of Fierce Healthcare's Fierce 15 of 2024 honorees, uses AI to increase the speed and accuracy of medical note-taking, leveraging a proprietary data set derived from more than 1.5 million medical encounters. The company's AI converts a patient-clinician conversation into a structured clinical note draft in real time and integrates it seamlessly into the electronic health record system.
Once clinicians review and verify the note, their paperwork is complete. Abridge is available in more than 14 languages and over 50 specialties.
Founded in 2018, Abridge continues to rapidly grow and ink new partnerships with health systems to deploy its AI-based clinical documentation technology at UChicago Medicine, Sutter Health, Yale New Haven Health System, UCI Health, Emory Healthcare, The University of Kansas Health System, UPMC and dozens of other health systems.
In a major win for the company, Epic integrated the company’s gen AI for clinical documentation into its EHR workflow as part of the tech giant's new third-party vendor program.
Abridge clinched a $150 million series C financing round in February, which includes a strategic investment from NVIDIA.
Physicians spend significant time outside of patient visits working on administrative tasks like writing clinical notes. Health systems across the country are turning to technology like gen AI tools to reduce the burden of documentation.
In recent years, cognitive load, which measures the amount of mental effort it takes to complete a task, has been linked to increased rates of burnout and patient safety issues. Traditionally, cognitive load increases when doctors rapidly switch between documentation and patient care. With Abridge, clinicians at Christus experienced a 78% reduction in cognitive load, contributing to a more focused and efficient approach to patient care.
Christus Health began experimenting with ambient clinical voice tools two years ago to reduce doctors' administrative burdens, Barker said. But, many vendors used virtual scribes and the turnaround time to complete clinical notes was typically hours or often the next day, he noted. And, he added, the quality of the service varied.
The health system looked for companies that offered more AI-based automated clinical note-taking solutions that integrated with its Epic electronic health record systems, he said.
"Abridge was the first one of those that we tried, and Abridge was very easy to work with," he said. Christus began testing Abridge's technology with 20 physicians who were adept at using Epic's software, Barker noted.
"As part of our strategy, we also picked physicians who have a leadership role, because we thought if we roll this out systemwide, they will be a big asset to us in rolling it out," he said. "They loved it out of the box."
Many physicians have told Barker that the AI-based clinical note-taking technology is "life-changing," he said.
“Abridge has been a game changer. I feel much less distracted with patients since I can focus on the conversation and history without pausing to take extensive notes or re-ask questions I missed during note-taking,” said Myriah Willborn, M.D., family medicine doctor, Christus Trinity Clinic in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Barker said the onboarding process was simple, only requiring an e-learning session and another session to review personalization features. The leadership team overseeing the tech deployment aims to add 75 to 100 users over the next several months, he added.
Barker estimates that 80% of Christus' ambulatory clinicians could adopt Abridge's technology. He also sees the potential to expand use of the clinical documentation technology in acute care, namely, emergency departments.
Health systems are evaluating the ROI of deploying these gen AI tools for clinical documentation.
Barker said the first clinical documentation solution vendor Christus worked with came with a high price tag.
"I have a difficult time coming up with an ironclad return on investment where it's going to pay for itself," he said. "Now, with the full AI versions, what we're paying now is literally 25% of what we were paying for that original vendor with that original pilot a couple of years ago. It's very easy to get it down to a reasonable ROI."
The technology increases physician productivity resulting in one-half more patient encounters per day among the pilot users, Barker said. "That's two to three more encounters per week. But, the big return on investment is more recruiting and retention. We're doing demos and that makes an impression on those third-year residents that you're trying to recruit to come work for you. We've also had other physicians who are nearing retirement or had retirement plans. They saw Abridge and they thought, 'Maybe I can work a little longer.'"
To measure ROI for the solution, the health system is evaluating the reduction in "pajama time," or how much time physicians spend documenting in the EHR after hours. "We measure time and notes per encounter," Barker said. "Interestingly, there's a little bit of discordance between what physicians will tell you and what their Epic signal reports. Their perception is, 'This has saved me a ton of time. This is just amazing. It's life-changing.' Then, you look at their numbers, their signal numbers, and it's not necessarily reflected in those numbers."
He credited this discrepancy to how Epic measures documentation time based on having the EHR software open, even when using Abridge.
The health system evaluates physician productivity based on the number of patient encounters as well as evaluation and management (E/M) coding. "We've actually seen a slight bump in Level 4 versus Level 3 E&M coding," Barker said, attributing that change to the gen AI technology capturing the entire doctor-patient conversation in real time.
The health system also considers physician surveys evaluating burnout and well-being and found overwhelmingly positive feedback based on its pilot phase. "It's a lifting of that cognitive burden; you're not as fatigued at the end of the day because you lifted that responsibility of writing all those notes off your shoulders; that's huge," Barker said. "I have a new user who is one of our physician leaders and is very involved in our quality program who really focused in on that. It brings the joy back into practicing medicine. She said the connection with the patient was just better and she remembered what went on in that encounter because she wasn't multitasking."
The partnership with Abridge fits with Christus Health's broader technology strategy, Barker noted.
"From my perspective as a CMIO, I like technology, but it's not technology for the sake of technology. I's technology that helps us do our job. This is a perfect example. This technology really helps us do our job; it makes it easier for us to do our job and it enables us to pay more attention to the patients," he said.
Shiv Rao, M.D., CEO and founder of Abridge, said the remarkable outcomes and resoundingly positive feedback from clinicians at Christus Health underscore the profound impact of generative AI on the future of medicine.
“By alleviating cognitive load and creating space for more meaningful patient interactions, we will improve the lives of clinicians today and draw the next generation of patient care providers to the profession," Rao said in a statement.