- Ambience AutoScribe technology, custom-built for medicine, works in real time without human scribes
- Providers using the technology reduce their documentation time by 76% on average
- Company backed by top-tier investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Human Capital, Kleiner Perkins, AIX Ventures, and OpenAI Startup Fund
Ambience Healthcare, a leading AI company developing technology to supercharge healthcare providers, announced today the public launch of its fully automated AI medical scribe, Ambience AutoScribe. Already in use by provider organizations across North America, AutoScribe is revolutionizing the way healthcare providers document patient visits.
Leveraging state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technology custom-built for medicine, AutoScribe comprehensively captures the nuances of each patient story, without the need for a virtual or in-person human scribe. AutoScribe embeds deeply into the EMR workflow and operates in real-time, which means that the AI-generated notes are immediately available to review, edit, and sign off without breaking provider workflow. AutoScribe can also be customized to each provider’s individual preferences, ensuring that the notes are written in the provider’s own voice and style.
“While building a primary care practice at our previous company, we saw our providers burning out from spending over two hours a day entering data into the EMR. We tried every solution we could find—dictation, templates, phrase expanders, and even virtual scribes that claimed to be ‘powered by AI’—but nothing truly worked for our providers,” said Ambience Healthcare Co-Founder and CEO, Mike Ng. “We founded Ambience with the goal of creating that elusive holy grail: an ambient, AI system that generates high-quality documentation in real-time so that providers can purely focus on providing patient care; a system that is always available, scalable at the cost of software, and self-improves over time.”
AutoScribe works even in medical specialties such as behavioral health, psychiatry, and geriatric primary care, where notes are long, the conversations are complex, and patient access is hindered by a systemic shortage of qualified providers.
Providers who have adopted AutoScribe report saving hours per day on documentation, allowing them to use that time to deliver better care to more patients.
“The dilemma is that clinicians don’t have time to write down everything while they’re in the room with the patient,” reflects Dr. Kendell Cannon, Chief Medical Officer of Pine Park Health, a large primary care group providing care for complex geriatric populations in assisted living facilities, and Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford School of Medicine. “Ambience’s technology allows clinicians to avoid multitasking, focus on their patients, and create a person-centered clinical record.”
“It feels like I made a clone of myself and my clone is taking my notes for me,” shared Lynn Noyce, Nurse Practitioner at Pine Park Health. “Even though I don’t verbalize everything I’m thinking, the software is smart enough to make sure that my decision-making is reflected in the notes it writes for me. In one 45-minute visit, Ambience’s product was able to parse out every single one of the 10+ patient concerns we covered.”
Dr. Jennifer O’Driscoll, a Medical Director at Rocket Doctor who focuses on family medicine and substance abuse disorders, added: “It’s remarkable how effectively and accurately AutoScribe captures the essence of what the patient is saying. It really knows how to document the narrative and nuances of each patient story, not just the black-and-white medical facts. It actually reads like my own note and not a cookie-cutter set of macros or templates. When I review it later, I remember exactly who that patient was.”
“Ambience’s technology represents a step function improvement in the ability for AI to generate compelling medical documentation. In an industry where many promises have failed to come to fruition, we felt that it was important to deliver on the core technology before entering the market,“ said Nikhil Buduma, Co-founder and Chief Scientist at Ambience Healthcare. “AutoScribe is the outcome of two years of deep R&D, and we’ve made a lot of progress in developing AI systems that are robust, useful, and safe for medicine.”
At a time when providers are resigning from their jobs at record rates, AutoScribe is addressing the national epidemic of burnout in medicine.
“The healthcare system in the United States is already stretched thin, with more demand for high-quality care and a shortage of providers to address it,” said George Khasin, CEO at Pine Park Health. “Automating non-clinical work enables providers to focus on providing care, which is what they want to do most and what patients most need.”
Dr. Denise Yun, Executive Medical Director at Pine Park Health, added, “For as long as I can remember, my colleagues and I would stay late at work and spend hours at home after dinner trying to catch up on our charts. We had come to accept it as just ‘part of the job.’ But over the years, all of the time away from family and friends came at a cost. I’m excited about our partnership with Ambience, because we are starting to change that narrative. I see a weight lifted off the shoulders of our providers using Ambience. They are leaving work earlier. They are no longer spending hours writing notes at home. And, perhaps most importantly, we are re-discovering the joy that brought us into medicine in the first place.”
Ambience, which has raised $30 million in total funding to-date, is backed by world-class investors, entrepreneurs and technologists including Andreessen Horowitz, Human Capital, Kleiner Perkins, AIX Ventures, Jeff Dean, Richard Socher, Pieter Abbeel, Eren Bali, Jay Desai, Nish Bhat, Matt Mochary, OpenAI Startup Fund, and others.
About Ambience Healthcare
Ambience Healthcare is a healthcare software company whose mission is to supercharge healthcare providers with advanced ambient AI technology. Ambience AutoScribe is used by major provider organizations across North America to reduce documentation burden and address provider burnout. Founded in 2020 by Mike Ng and Nikhil Buduma, Ambience is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Human Capital, Kleiner Perkins, AIX Ventures, Jeff Dean, Richard Socher, Pieter Abbeel, Eren Bali, Jay Desai, Nish Bhat, Matt Mochary, OpenAI Startup Fund, and others. To learn more, visit ambiencehealthcare.com.
Originally announced February 23rd, 2023
