Kaiser Permanente decided to embark on the largest generative AI project in healthcare to date after considerable demand from clinicians and positive feedback from patients.
The Oakland, Calif.-based health system rolled out an ambient listening tool from healthcare artificial intelligence startup Abridge to providers across its 40 hospitals and over 600 medical offices Aug. 15, starting with family and internal medicine and some specialties.
"This has been the fastest implementation of a technology in my over 20 years at Kaiser Permanente," Desiree Gandrup-Dupre, senior vice president of care delivery technology services at Kaiser Permanente, told Becker's. "The demand and interest from the clinicians has been driving us to launch this quickly and also make sure that we're being as efficient as we could with the right amount of quality."
The health system piloted the smartphone app, which listens in on medical appointments and automatically drafts notes for the EHR, in its Washington market, where it was popular with patients and providers. Kaiser Permanente engaged over 1,000 physicians and other clinicians to evaluate the accuracy and quality of the AI-generated notes.
"From an AI perspective, that quality assurance process will be something that we'll be leveraging as we look at all other tools in the future that have that type of capability built into it," Ms. Gandrup-Dupre said.
The health system said the financial terms of the deal are confidential. Ms. Gandrup-Dupre said Kaiser initially looked at multiple solutions but picked Abridge based on safety, privacy and reliability and because it was a good cultural fit.
Kaiser providers who used the tool reported less time spent looking at the computer and more eye contact with patients, who had high satisfaction scores during the AI-aided visits.
"The clinician community was so supportive, it allowed us to go very quickly," Ms. Gandrup-Dupre said. "Everyone's excited that we've been able to make such a difference in our patient care experience."