How Ambient Scribe Adds Impressive Features to Healthcare Systems

TAs one health system executive put it, healthcare’s “Pepsi Challenge” is on. Ambient scribes, which listen to audio of patient encounters and convert them into structured clinical notes for electronic medical records, are leading the way in the race to test generative AI in healthcare. And to find the right scribe at the right price, health systems are pitting scribes against each other.

The latest update to STAT’s Generative AI tracker documents nearly 90 health systems experimenting with Ambient Scribe, many in small pilots, but some committed to full implementation. They range from online-only telemedicine companies to federally qualified medical centers, but the majority of early adopters remain large, research-focused academic medical centers, many of which are using generative AI to develop and sell their own tools.

AI scribe contracts with health systems are dominated by six companies, including Microsoft’s Nuance, Nabla and Abridge, which is partnering with Epic. But there are more than 50 companies offering automated medical documentation to providers, according to a Gartner analysis. In this competitive field, many health systems are running pilots to compare two or three competing products head-to-head to see which one will be successful.