What you should know:
– Shorten announced an enterprise-wide agreement with CHRISTUS Health, a Texas-based not-for-profit international health system with 15,000 physicians and more than 600 care locations.
– With Abridge’s generative AI solution for clinical documentation in use for the past few months, CHRISTUS clinicians have already seen a significant reduction in burnout and are now paying closer attention to patients.
Abridged: Transforming medical documentation with AI
Founded in 2018, Abridge’s mission is to improve understanding in healthcare through its AI-powered platform, purpose-built for medical conversations. The platform improves the efficiency of clinical documentation, allowing clinicians to focus more on their patients. With support for over 14 languages and 50 specialties, Abridge addresses a wide range of clinician-patient encounters.
Earlier this year, CHRISTUS Health piloted Abridge to study its impact on clinicians. Following overwhelmingly positive feedback and a study demonstrating the platform’s benefits on clinician well-being, CHRISTUS Health signed an enterprise-wide agreement to implement Abridge. Survey results revealed significant time savings, reduced burnout, and increased uninterrupted time with patients. Clinicians now spend an average of 60% less time on documentation outside of work hours, allowing them to better balance their work and personal lives. Additionally, there was a 40% decrease in physician burnout, as measured using the Mini Z Burnout Survey, an industry-validated measure of work-life balance and well-being among practicing physicians. Additionally, there was a 41% increase in the number of clinicians giving patients their full attention, leading to improved communication and patient satisfaction.
The platform has also been shown to reduce cognitive load, a measure of the mental effort required to complete tasks, which has been linked to increased rates of burnout and patient safety issues. Traditionally, cognitive load increases when physicians quickly switch between documentation and patient care. With Abridge, CHRISTUS clinicians have experienced a 78% reduction in cognitive load, contributing to a more focused and efficient approach to patient care.
Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and Founder of Abridge, highlighted the significance of these findings, saying, “The remarkable results and overwhelmingly positive feedback from CHRISTUS Health clinicians underscore the profound impact that generative AI will have on the future of medicine. By easing the cognitive load and creating space for more meaningful patient interactions, we will improve the lives of today’s clinicians and attract the next generation of healthcare providers to the profession.”
Abridge’s success at CHRISTUS Health is part of a broader trend, with successful deployments 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. Abridge recently announced $150 million in Series C funding, which includes a strategic investment from NVIDIA. Within months, CHRISTUS plans to make Abridge available to all outpatient clinicians, further expanding its impact on healthcare.
