What You Should Know:
– Abridge, a generative AI platform for clinical conversations, is expanding its capabilities to support inpatient care settings and to queue up outpatient orders.
– The extension of its platform is part of the Workshop program, through which Epic and Abridge have collaborated to develop new, innovative healthcare technologies that are piloted and refined before wider release.
Abridge Inside for Inpatient: Bringing AI Documentation to the Bedside
Abridge is extending its functionality from outpatient and emergency medicine into the complex inpatient setting. The new “Abridge Inside for Inpatient” feature offers seamless integration with Epic, from the mobile Haiku app to the Hyperspace desktop environment, allowing clinicians to leverage Abridge without leaving their familiar Epic workflow.
Abridge Inside for Inpatient is tailored specifically to the unique inpatient workflow, offering:
- Seamless integration with Haiku, enabling users to leverage SmartPhrases and templates for rapid note closure.
- Standard note types, including history and physical (H&P), progress notes, and consults, with Epic automatically mapping the generated note into the selected format.
- Simultaneous management of patients and notes, facilitating pre-charting, post-charting, and easy switching between patients.
“Abridge Inside automatically transforms bedside conversations into structured Epic notes, empowering inpatient clinicians who deliver the intricately balanced coordinated care for admitted patients to devote more time to patient care,” said Dr. Veena Jones, Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer at Sutter Health, one of the early pilot partners. “Seamless Epic integration into a variety of note types makes it easy to use, and our admitting hospitalists, in particular, are thrilled.”
Moving from Conversation to Action with Outpatient Orders
In addition to its inpatient expansion, Abridge is streamlining the orders workflow for outpatient clinicians through an early pilot in Epic’s Workshop program. This new functionality addresses a critical and time-consuming task, as nearly three-quarters of outpatient visits result in at least one prescription order. As part of the initial rollout, the feature allows medications mentioned during patient encounters to be surfaced directly inside Epic, enabling clinicians to rapidly place orders based on the conversation. This saves time, reduces cognitive burden, and minimizes duplicate work.
“Once I finish the visit, the medications I talked through are already surfaced in Epic—and that’s a huge help in a busy clinic,” said Dr. Mary Kirby, a family medicine physician at Coastal Carolina.
Abridge plans to expand this capability to include support for imaging, labs, and additional order types, helping clinicians close the loop on more types of follow-up care discussed during the patient conversation.
