OpenNotes, Abridge Partner on AI-Generated Visit Summaries

What You Should Know: 

– OpenNotes, an advocate for healthcare transparency, and Abridge, an AI-powered clinical documentation platform, have joined forces to improve patient engagement and understanding through enhanced AI-generated visit summaries. 

– The collaboration, part of the new OpenNotes Lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), will leverage patient feedback and AI to create more effective and accessible patient-facing documentation.

Improving Patient Understanding with AI

Abridge’s AI platform automates clinical documentation, generating structured clinical notes and patient-friendly visit summaries. These summaries are designed to be easily understandable, providing key information such as diagnoses, medications, and next steps in care.

Through this partnership, OpenNotes will conduct a study to evaluate the effectiveness of Abridge’s AI-generated summaries. The study will involve focus groups of patients who have received Abridge summaries, gathering feedback on their usefulness, accessibility, and overall impact on patient understanding.

Co-Designing a Better Patient Experience

OpenNotes specializes in collaborative research that prioritizes the perspectives of both patients and clinicians. This patient-centered approach will inform the development of enhanced visit summaries that better meet patient needs and promote greater transparency in healthcare communication. Key benefits of the collaboration include: 

• Enhanced Patient Understanding: Improved visit summaries will empower patients with clearer and more accessible information about their health.
• Increased Patient Engagement: Enhanced understanding can lead to greater patient engagement in their care.
• Improved Communication: Clearer communication between patients and clinicians can foster stronger relationships and better health outcomes.
• Reduced Health Literacy Barriers: Patient-friendly summaries can help overcome health literacy challenges and ensure that all patients can understand their care plans.

“This research collaboration with OpenNotes will harness the power of actual patient conversations in informing the next generation of visit summaries, an invaluable tool in keeping doctors and patients on the same page,” said Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and Founder of Abridge. “We are excited to continue exploring ways to enrich the Abridge platform with insights from the research we will conduct with OpenNotes.”