Dive Brief:
- Abridge is expanding its clinical decision support tool through two partnerships with publishers of major medical journals, the AI scribe company announced Wednesday.
- Under the deal, content from the New England Journal of Medicine and the JAMA Network will inform the AI’s responses when clinicians search for medical information and ask questions about patient care.
- The tool should allow clinicians to more easily access the latest medical research, Abridge said. “With the amount of complexity that exists in healthcare now, easy access to information for the right patient, the right moment, the right clinical conversation — it’s critical,” Matt Troup, clinical strategy principal at Abridge, said in an interview.
Dive Insight:
Over the past three years, the use of generative AI in healthcare has significantly increased, especially for tasks like documenting patient care and searching for medical information.
Thirty-five percent of physicians report using AI tools to look up recent research in order to aid in care delivery and decision-making, according to a survey published last month by Doximity. Nearly 30% said they use a voice-based documentation tool, which typically records clinicians’ conversations with patients and drafts a clinical note, the survey found.
Founded in 2018, Abridge is one of a number of firms touting these AI scribes. The company, which raised two nine-digit funding rounds last year, works with 250 health systems across the country, including Kaiser Permanente, UPMC and Northwell Health.
Now, Abridge is expanding its clinical support capabilities. Providers can query an AI before appointments with patients to help them prepare. They can also chat with the AI, which can use information from a patient’s clinical notes to guide reponses, during and after visits, Troup said.
The clinical decision support capabilities have been available to clinicians for the past two to three months, using information from Wolters Kluwer’s UptoDate clinical and drug data tool, Troup said. Content from NEJM and JAMA will roll out in the coming months, according to a press release Wednesday.
All information delivered to a clinician is annotated, so providers can see where answers were sourced. That should build trust in the AI, as well as serve as a safety guardrail against hallucinations or misleading information, Troup said.
“The clinician is in control and is the decision maker, but the access to that information is now presented in a more meaningful and impactful way,” he said.
