USA’s Abridge Partners with Epic & Mayo Clinic to Develop AI Tools for Nurses

This new technology integrates with Epic’s electronic health records (EHR) system to streamline the nursing workflow.

Abridge, in collaboration with Epic Systems and Mayo Clinic, has introduced a generative AI tool designed for Nurses. It is expected to be deployed at Mayo Clinic by the end of the year. 

This new AI technology integrates with Epic’s electronic health records (EHR) system to streamline the nursing workflow and  ease nurses' documentation burden. 

It integrates into existing Epic inpatient nursing workflows thereby enhancing the nursing documentation.

Shiv Rao, MD, CEO and founder of Abridge, said, “Nurses are the scaffolding of the healthcare system. We can serve them now with technology that can unburden them and allow them to focus on what gives them energy, which is patient care.” 

Rao also emphasized that the tool will initially be tested and refined with Mayo Clinic’s nursing staff to ensure it meets the needs and regulatory requirements of nursing workflows.

This move seeks to support hospital nurses, a group that has traditionally seen limited technological support compared to their physician counterparts.

The Gen-AI Tool 

Abridge’s AI platform aims to support a wide range of nursing activities, including clinical note taking and data capture. 

This initiative comes at a time when nursing burnout and job dissatisfaction are high, with recent surveys indicating a significant portion of nurses are considering leaving the profession due to increased workload and stress. 

The integration of AI tools aims to mitigate some of these issues by reducing the administrative burden and allowing nurses to focus more on patient care.

The AI tool is designed to manage the fast-paced, multifaceted nature of nursing work, which involves continuous patient interactions and numerous documentation tasks. 

The integration with Epic’s EHR system is intended to address the complexity of nursing workflows, which include capturing vital signs, documenting safety measures, and managing extensive patient data.

Additionally, the AI-based documentation system was developed as part of the Epic Workshop program, which includes collaborations with third-party vendors to co-develop new technologies. 

Moreover, Mayo Clinic’s nursing staff will play a crucial role in designing and testing the system, focusing on identifying the workflows where the AI tool can benefit most.

Ryannon Frederick, chief nursing officer at Mayo Clinic, said, “We are engaging them directly in developing this technology to ensure its use meets the unique needs of nursing and patient care workflows along with regulatory requirements for ambient solutions.”

Future Plans

If successful, the project might lead to broader adoption across other healthcare systems, potentially addressing the increasing administrative burden on nurses and alleviating some of the pressures associated with the nursing shortage.

Abridge’s technology is based on a proprietary data set from over 1.5 million medical encounters. It is designed to convert patient-clinician conversations into structured clinical notes in real-time. 

“The complexity, in some ways, is greater from an integration perspective than the complexity of integrating a doctor's note into the medical record,” Rao added.