Health systems across the country continue to sing the praises of AI scribes — celebrating these tools not only for their ability to give clinicians hours back into their days, but also because they allow patients to feel more seen and heard.
St. Luke’s Health System is among the many organizations nationwide that are scaling their use of AI-powered documentation tools. This month, the Idaho-based health system — which comprises eight hospitals and more than 350 clinics — announced that it has begun rolling out Ambience Healthcare’s AI platform across its entire enterprise following a successful pilot.
Ambience’s AI platform helps clinicians design their agenda before a patient visit begins. Once the clinician is in the room with a patient, Ambience listens to the conversation. The technology then leverages all of the patient’s historical EHR data, as well as the recording of the visit, to automate documentation for the patient and clinician. This includes clinical notes, after-visit summaries, referral letters, and CPT and ICD-10 coding suggestions.
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St. Luke’s chose Ambience as its AI-powered documentation partner because of the company’s “deep AI expertise,” said Reid Stephan, the health system’s CIO.
“It was very clear they understood generative AI. They had founders and employees that had deep connections and years of experience with the technology. They also had a great sensitivity to and understanding of healthcare — a deference to operations and clinicians, and that really resonated with our doctors. And they spent the time getting to know us,” Stephan stated.
In his view, these qualities helped Ambience stand out from the many other vendors selling AI scribes. Some of these companies include Microsoft, Suki, Abridge and DeepScribe.
Ambience’s ability to seamlessly integrate with Epic, as well as the company’s willingness to work closely with St. Luke’s clinicians to develop tools tailored to various specialties, were also important factors, Stephan noted.
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Beginning in March of last year, the partners began launching a pilot program across primary care and 11 specialties: family medicine, internal medicine, cardiology, oncology, behavioral health, neurology, neurosurgery, nephrology, pediatrics, pediatric nephrology and pediatric hematology.
“We had 35 physicians and [advanced practice professionals] in the initial pilot — and within just a few weeks, we saw immediate signs of success,” Stephan declared.
During the pilot, clinicians’ documentation time dropped by an average of 39%, according to St. Luke’s case study. The amount of time saved per clinician varied due to different factors — such as specialty, schedule and working style — but many clinicians reported saving hours per day as a result of adopting Ambience’s technology, Stephan stated. He said he recently spoke to a clinician who said Ambience’s tool is saving her 20 hours per week on documenting tasks.
Another St. Luke’s clinician — Dr. Devin Laky, a family medicine physician — noted that she no longer feels consumed by “the perpetual dread of keeping up with documentation” thanks to Ambience’s tool.
“Now I have more mental clarity and presence with others at work and home. Being a brand-new mom just back from maternity leave, I will say returning to work with ambient AI makes me feel like I can achieve great professional and personal life balance for the first time ironically. I am lucky this is the time for AI to reignite my spirit in this career,” Dr. Laky said in a statement.
About 400 St. Luke’s clinicians are currently using Ambience’s AI platform, and the health system will continue to scale the deployment until all clinicians have access to the technology, Stephan said.
Photo: Elena Lukyanova, Getty Images