Health Systems Among Investors in Generative AI Company Abridge
The latest funding round for Abridge, a company focused on generative AI for clinical documentation, includes investments from several health systems.
The company claims its solution has been proven to save clinicians over two hours per day from administrative burden that previously took time away from patients and detracted from clinician work-life balance. “In recent implementations, over 91 percent of notes across over 40 specialties were drafted solely with their AI, requiring minimal input from the clinician. The solution has been uniquely designed with trust and auditability, providing the ability to quickly see source data from any AI-generated summary,” Abridge said.
In August 2023, Healthcare Innovation interviewed Alistair Erskine, M.D., M.B.A., chief information and digital officer of Atlanta-based Emory Healthcare, about why his organization signed an enterprise-wide agreement with generative artificial intelligence company Abridge to make Abridge’s Epic-integrated solution for note-taking available to Emory clinicians over the next three years.
“What I was surprised about with Abridge, and what kind of piqued my curiosity, is that its technology is across the board. I don't need to wait until it tells me ‘Okay, we're good for cardiologists now.’ Right now, I have 20 doctors using it, and it's across all different specialties and I'm getting the same positive feedback from all of them,” Erksine said. (Since that interview, Emory's Abridge user base has grown to more than 500 doctors.)
Pittsburgh-based Abridge’s Series B raise of $30 million was led by Spark Capital. The round also included existing investor Bessemer Venture Partners, as well as several leading healthcare innovators including CVS Health Ventures, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Lifepoint Health, Mayo Clinic, SCAN Group, UC Investments (University of California) and the American College of Cardiology. The company said the investment will support large-scale health system rollouts and accelerate product advances.
Several of these company’s executives shared why they were investing in Abridge. “We share Abridge’s vision of doing all we can to help clinicians focus on their patients, rather than needing to multitask with documentation,” said John Halamka, M.D., president of the Mayo Clinic Platform, in a statement.
“At UCI Health (University of California Irvine), our dedicated focus is on enhancing operational efficiency and simplifying documentation for our physicians and caregivers. The decision to invest in Abridge reflects our commitment to achieving these goals and, importantly, addressing clinician burnout. We recognize the impact of streamlined processes in alleviating the burdens on our healthcare professionals,” said Scott Joslyn, chief innovation officer of UCI Health, in a statement. “We are excited to forge this partnership with Abridge and Dr. Shiv Rao’s team.”
Rao, Abridge’s CEO and co-founder, said, “The investment and support of these iconic institutions is a game-changer for Abridge, dramatically accelerating what we can do to solve a critical issue facing every health system. “We are grateful to have an extraordinary and rapidly expanding group of partners who share our ambition to preserve the empathy and humanity in healthcare by enabling clinicians to be more present with their patients.”
