Sharp HealthCare, the largest integrated health system in San Diego, has selected the Abridge generative AI platform to streamline clinical documentation across its entire enterprise. With the goal of improving both clinical efficiency and financial outcomes, Abridge will be deployed system-wide, serving over one million patients annually.
“Every AI solution needs to justify its cost with significant ROI,” said Dan Exley, Chief Information and Innovation Officer at Sharp HealthCare. “If an AI solution demonstrates sustained clinical and financial impact, it will make it into enterprise-wide adoption. In our personal lives, we live like the Jetsons, but at work, we’re stuck in the Flintstones era. That’s what we’re changing.”
Clinical documentation plays a pivotal role in patient care, care team coordination, and compensation for services. Yet, capturing this data can be burdensome. That’s where Abridge comes in, using AI to generate comprehensive, compliant, and billable medical notes in real-time.
“If you didn’t write it down, it didn’t happen,” noted Dr. Brian Lichtenstein, hospitalist and Associate Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) of Acute Care at Sharp HealthCare. “With Abridge, we’re picking up on additional conditions our clinicians are treating that might have otherwise been lost.”
At the heart of Abridge is its Contextual Reasoning Engine, an AI system that produces structured, billable notes during the clinical encounter. This technology ensures more accurate documentation and reduces the risk of missing key clinical details.
Dr. Elan Hekier, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Physician and CMIO of Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group, shared a compelling example: “Abridge more completely captures all the work I’m doing. It even added a diagnosis I had forgotten by the end of a long visit.”
The results from Sharp’s pilot program with Abridge speak volumes. Clinicians reported:
- 83% reduction in note-writing effort
- 83% increase in work satisfaction
- 75% increase in note quality
This was backed by a pre- and post-implementation survey, which also showed a self-reported 10% boost in the ability to see additional patients needing urgent care.
Dr. Nicole Tremain, Associate CMIO at Sharp Community Medical Group, noted the multilingual capabilities of the platform: “I’m Spanish-speaking, and sometimes I speak in Spanglish with my patients. Abridge’s HPI and A&P always pick up way more than I used to catch, regardless of the language.”
Today, Abridge is trusted by more than 100 major health systems to provide clinical documentation that is relied upon daily by physicians, patients, and revenue cycle professionals alike.
“Enterprise-grade healthcare AI removes barriers between patients and clinicians and delivers ROI for healthcare systems,” said Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and Founder of Abridge. “Our mission is to relieve the documentation burden so clinicians can focus on delivering exceptional patient care.”