Clinician adoption of ambient speech tools quickly rising

Abridge

Interviewed Abridge customers are highly satisfied due to the technology's strong outcomes, cost and multilingual features. Respondents also highlighted Abridge for its physician-led leadership and responsiveness to their feedback. A few clients indicated concern about Abridge's rapid growth, feeling the vendor might become stretched across their growing customer base.

DAX Copilot

Clients of DAX Copilot, a Microsoft solution, noted that they selected the tool in part due to long-standing partnerships with Microsoft. Interviewed customers reported optimism about the long-term viability of the technology, reporting that each upgrade brings sizable improvements to the tool. However, some respondents feel the product is more expensive than other ambient speech tools, and a few said that the cost might steer them toward other options.

Customers of Abridge and Microsoft both noted their Epic Workshop partnership, which allows vendors to partner with Epic to develop ambient speech integrations. While some Epic clients use other ambient speech tools, most use either Abridge or Microsoft due to the integrated technology.

Suki

Nearly all Suki customers reported satisfaction with the vendor's implementation and ongoing support. Suki's EHR-agnostic solution is validated for use with various EHRs. Among measured vendors, Suki has the highest number of validated customers using Athenahealth's EHR. Suki partners with the EHR vendor through Athenahealth's Ambient Notes product. Additionally, Suki is a MEDITECH Alliance member, which allows them to support MEDITECH EHR integration.

Nabla

Nabla respondents noted the affordability of the solution, as well as its customization capabilities. Nabla's multi-EHR approach has led to implementation across a broad group of EHRs. Some respondents are in the process of rolling out deeper EHR integration. About half of clients said that Nabla doesn't yet integrate with their EHR, their organization chose to delay integration or their EHR vendor is a limiting factor.

Most of the respondents without EHR integration use either Altera Digital Health, Oracle Health or a smaller EHR. However, these clients are still satisfied overall, as EHR integration was not an initial product expectation, and most anticipate rolling out integration soon.

Ambience Healthcare

While KLAS has limited data for Ambience Healthcare, customers underscored the vendor's ability to deliver new technology based on client feedback. Respondents also said Ambience quickly turns around upgrades and keeps set timelines. However, while most respondents are satisfied with Ambience's EHR integration, a few want deeper integration.

DeepScribe

Limited data from DeepScribe respondents show high satisfaction, regardless of organization size. Clients reported a high level of engagement from the DeepScribe team for implementations, training and ongoing support. Clients also feel that the vendor fulfills development requests and proactively adds new features to improve their experience.

Additional market insights

Two-thirds of interviewed organizations chose initial ambient speech users by prioritizing overburdened clinicians or asking for volunteers.

To drive adoption, organizations commonly recommended relying on word of mouth among clinicians, as well as setting expectations regarding ambient speech's capabilities. Respondents also suggested not requiring clinicians to see more patients to use ambient speech tools, as doing so can minimize adoption and outcomes.

Across all vendors, organizations said that the structured clinical documentation created by ambient speech technology decreases the time clinicians spend charting. Some organizations also report that notes are now more comprehensive, which is positively impacting downstream operations such as coding and billing. However, respondents desire more reporting from their vendors to track the ROI of these solutions.

Hannah Nelson has been covering news related to health information technology and health data interoperability since 2020.