Athenahealth to supply Abridge’s AI scribe to its network of hundreds of doctors

Health-care software vendor Athenahealth on Tuesday said it’s going to offer Abridge’s artificial intelligence scribing tool to its network of greater than 160,000 clinicians. 

Athenahealth has developed an electronic health record, revenue cycle management tools and patient engagement tools for ambulatory care providers, which include outpatient facilities like independent practices. The corporate introduced an answer called Ambient Notes in October that enables doctors to choose from various AI-powered documentation tools, and Abridge is the newest addition. 

Abridge uses AI to draft clinical notes in real time as doctors consensually record their visits with patients. The startup is a component of a red-hot market that has exploded as health-care executives seek for solutions to assist reduce staff burnout and daunting administrative workloads. 

“The market goes to evolve relatively rapidly, there are going to be winners and losers over time,” Athenahealth CEO Bob Segert told CNBC. “Different physicians will prefer alternative ways that notes are taken and that the knowledge is delivered, and we wish to find a way to offer that flexibility.”

Athenahealth and Abridge declined to share the financial details of the partnership. 

Clinicians spend nearly nine hours per week on documentation, in line with an October study from Google Cloud. And greater than 90% of physicians report feeling burned out on a “regular basis,” in line with a survey commissioned by Athenahealth last February. 

Corporations including Abridge, Microsoft’s Nuance Communications, Suki and others say their AI scribing tools may also help. Suki and iScribeHealth already offer their tools through Athenahealth’s Ambient Notes solution. 

“It’ll be incumbent upon us to ensure that we’re capable of reveal differentiation,” Abridge CEO Dr. Shiv Rao told CNBC. “To this point, we have had good luck these previous few years doing that.”

Abridge has deployed its technology across greater than 100 health systems within the U.S., including organizations just like the Mayo Clinic, Duke Health and Johns Hopkins Medicine.

The corporate announced a $250 million funding round earlier this month. It also unveiled a latest Contextual Reasoning Engine that may pull information that is relevant to a particular clinician and their clinic’s best practices. Abridge’s Rao said that technology shall be available to Athenahealth clinicians. 

Athenahealth’s Ambient Notes solution is currently available in a limited capability, but the corporate said it plans to widen availability for clinicians through 2025. 

“The more they fight it, the more they prefer it, and I believe we’ll see a fairly steep adoption curve as this continues to maneuver forward,” Segert said.