Abridge Rolls Out Nurse-Focused AI Documentation Tool at Select Units in More Than 250 Health Systems

To earn that trust back, it’s critical to put nurses in the driver's seat of the technology that's being developed,” Stanforth said. Dr. Shiv Rao, co-founder and CEO of Abridge, said building AI for nurses differs sharply from physician tools.

Nursing requires structured data entry into flow sheets rather than narrative summaries, creating a distinct machine learning challenge. Rao added that creating the first version of a nurse-usable product that nurses would say ‘This is great’ is definitely harder than for physicians.

At Mayo Clinic, nurses became “developers, side-by-side with Abridge,” according to Ryannon Frederick, the system’s chief nursing officer.

“From the get-go, we really said to Mayo Clinic nurses, ‘What's the problem we're trying to solve? ’” Frederick said. Corewell Health required nurses to undergo simulation labs to practice “nursing out loud” by verbally narrating assessments and care activities.

Nurses with the highest adoption rates at Corewell Health saved nearly 30 minutes per shift on documentation tasks. At Reid Health, leaders used simulation labs and TikTok-style educational clips for change management. “I see endless possibilities.

This is the most excited I've been about something brought forward in the profession in my 25 to 30 years as a nurse,” Misti Foust, vice president and chief nursing officer at Reid Health, said. At Mayo Clinic, patients opted into ambient recording at rates in the high 80 percents. The health system saw measurable improvements in patient satisfaction scores across all seven deployment units.

Ryannon Frederick said patients reported a reduction in anxiety on units using Abridge and that family members feel comfortable leaving because they know their loved one is informed. Corewell Health reported that no patients have opted out of Abridge for Nurses so far.

Newsweek reported that health system leaders described Abridge’s collaborative approach as helping build trust and producing a tool better suited to nursing’s complexity than earlier clinical AI products.