AI clinical documentation startup Abridge developed a medical record template specifically for pediatric providers, with a focus on primary care well visits.
During well-baby and well-child visits, physicians assess a child’s growth and development, diet, sleep, immunizations and evaluate vision and hearing, and documentation during these medical appointments is highly structured and responsive to the age and development of the child.
The protocol for a 6-month infant’s three-month checkup is different from that of the annual physical for a 15-year-old adolescent.
Abridge developed a template that uses ambient AI technology combined with what it calls its “contextual reasoning engine” to automatically detect the nature of the medical visit and generate the appropriate note during a pediatric visit, according to the company in a blog post.
“Well visit is interesting because it’s a specific note type and it has specific content associated with it. We need to ensure that we can recognize, first of all, the way people say all the different terms. Pediatric wellness visits have their own structure to them, their own way of integrating that information back into the medical record, and they’re a really important note that every pediatrician requests from us,” Shiv Rao, M.D., CEO and founder of Abridge said in a video describing the pediatric well-visit template.
With the pediatric note type, the templated History of Present Illness is structured around key subsections and lists the Well Visit and Anticipatory Guidance as primary problems in the Assessment and Plan, the company said.
“If we understand that this clinician is a pediatrician and we also know that this patient is under 18 years old, if we hear a hint, like, for example, that they’re talking about developmental milestones, then we’re going to understand that this is likely a wellness visit,” Rao said. “In a wellness visit, there might be information related to diet, related to sleep, related to oral health or vision and hearing or birth history or development milestones or school activities or mental health, and all of that information we’re going to be parsing in the background, and then we’re going to be structuring into those specific sections and then pushing back into the medical record.”
The company said it developed the pediatric well visit template in collaboration with pediatricians at partner health systems and with inputs from two pediatricians on staff.
Abridge’s technology has now been deployed in more than 100 health systems.The AI scribe market is booming, with investors pouring millions into the sector.
The company picked up a $250 million in series D funding back in February at a reported valuation $2.75 billion. Abridge has raised more than $460 million according to public records.
Abridge is reportedly in talks to raise “hundreds of millions” at a roughly $5 billion valuation, The Information recently reported. Competitor Ambience also is reportedly in talks to raise at a $1 billion valuation.
The company has been focused on developing generative AI tools for specific specialties and medical settings. In January, it launched a gen AI product for emergency care, currently in use at several health systems including Deaconess Health System, Emory Healthcare, Johns Hopkins Medicine and UChicago Medicine.
Abridge is also collaborating with Mayo Clinic and health IT giant Epic to develop a gen AI ambient documentation workflow for nurses.
“What we’re in the midst of is just going millions of miles deep on every single one of those specialties in every single one of those different settings,” Rao said in the video.
As healthcare AI grows, providers are expecting more from these companies. AI scribe companies are looking for ways to expand beyond note-taking into billing, coding and even revenue cycle management.
In a blog post, Abridge executives highlight that the company’s technology can generate “appropriate, clinically useful and billable documentation.” Abridge developed AI architecture that connects the clinical conversation with a world of context from disparate sources, including prior notes and specific specialties.
Pediatric well visits set the foundation for providers to establish relationships with families and children.
“Kids and families are very different, and there’s little nuggets of information and little bits of that relationship that is so critical that can now be reflected in a note,” said Joel Davidson, M.D., a pediatrician at Akron Children’s Hospital.
“The note feeling personal is one of the best parts of Abridge, and I think it’s one of the most important things that’s going to transform medicine,” Davidson said. “It’s transformed the way that I communicate with families. It’s allowed me to pause, to focus on the people that are in front of me. Patients actually just want me to be a doctor. They want to make sure that I’m focused on them. And this tool has really opened that communication up.”
Abridge said hundreds of clinicians across 24 health system partners provided feedback on well visit note type, giving an average rating of 4.5 stars across hundreds of thousands of notes.
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