OpenNotes, Abridge to Research AI-Generated Visit Summaries

Health transparency research organization OpenNotes is leading a study to evaluate Abridge’s AI-generated patient visit summaries. 

Founded in 2018, Abridge has developed an AI-powered platform for medical conversations, improving clinical documentation efficiencies.

This partnership is part of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s new OpenNotes Lab, an initiative fostering collaboration between patients and clinicians in developing AI-powered tools designed to advance transparency and digital health equity. 

In the initial phase, focus groups of patients who have been given Abridge visit summaries will evaluate them for usefulness, accessibility, and other measures of effectiveness. For this phase, there will be no use of patient data.

“We are excited to lead this project that brings patients’ voices directly into the design of health AI tools,” said Catherine M. DesRoches, Dr.P.H., executive director of OpenNotes at BIDMC, and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, in a statement. “By centering patients and their care partners in the process, we aim to establish new standards for responsible and transparent use of AI in clinical documentation, and ensuring these technologies serve patients, care partners, and clinicians.”

Abridge automates clinical documentation in real-time using AI, with the goal of reducing the burden and distraction of repetitive administrative tasks for clinicians. After each visit, Abridge creates a structured clinical note as well as a visit summary for the patient, which is written at an 8th-grade reading level and provides information like new diagnoses, medications, and next steps. The collaboration with OpenNotes is aimed at enhancing the Abridge patient visit summary and setting a new standard in patient-facing documentation.

"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 Shiv Rao, M.D., CEO and founder of Abridge, in a statement. “We are excited to continue exploring ways to enrich the Abridge platform with insights from the research we will conduct with OpenNotes.” 

"The visit summary came about with the widespread adoption of electronic health records in the early 2000s, and it's overdue for a refresh," said Katie McCurdy, founder of Pictal Health, patient advocate, and user experience designer, in a statement. McCurdy also serves on the OpenNotes Lab Advisory Board. "The potential impact of clearer, more user-friendly visit summaries is huge. OpenNotes and Abridge are the ideal teams to tackle this challenge, and patient advocates will be paying close attention.”