UNC Health to Adopt Abridge Technology to Improve Clinical Conversations

Thousands of UNC Health physicians and advanced providers will use Abridge’s technology

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. & SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--UNC Health, one of the largest and most comprehensive healthcare systems in the southeast, is expanding the use of Abridge AI across its network of thousands of clinicians to improve the patient and clinician experience.

“Abridge is a genuinely transformative technology, and it’s going to be the foundation of what we do going forward,” said Dr. Sachin Gupta, Chief Medical Officer for the UNC Physicians Network. “UNC Health is committed to making our clinicians’ lives easier and to improving the patient and clinician experience. This is a big win for us in those areas. Clinicians and patients who prefer not to use it can opt out, and we chose Abridge in part for its strong policies in protecting patient safety and privacy.”

Following a rigorous pilot evaluation involving 100 clinicians across multiple specialties and care settings, UNC Health selected Abridge as the enterprise-wide solution for ambient AI-powered documentation. UNC Health plans to offer the Abridge technology to its physicians and advanced practice providers across North Carolina beginning in early February.

“Our goal is to improve the satisfaction of our clinicians by reducing the time spent on clinical note-taking while maintaining UNC Health's high quality of patient-centered care,” said Dr. Matt Ewend, UNC Health’s Chief Clinical Officer. “As one pilot user noted: ‘It's been a game changer. I can complete my work while I’m at work and not have to work from home. I’m in heaven. Now, I don’t have a laptop between me and my patient anymore. I feel more connected.’”

“Abridge transforms patient-clinician conversations into structured clinical notes, enabling clinicians to focus on patient care rather than documentation,” said Dr. David McSwain, Chief Medical Informatics Officer. “This implementation aligns with UNC Health’s priority of promoting ease of practice and reducing administrative burden for its physicians and advanced practice providers.”

Abridge's speech recognition technology automatically detects care setting, specialty, and language to generate clinical documentation in real time. Utilizing auditable AI, Abridge maps clinical notes to ground truth in the conversation, helping clinicians quickly trust and verify the output. With deep integrations into leading electronic health records, Abridge streamlines workflows so clinicians can focus more on what matters most—delivering excellent patient care.

“At Abridge, our AI scientists and clinicians are committed to designing trusted solutions that meet the complex and evolving needs of large health systems like UNC Health,” said Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and Founder of Abridge. “We are privileged to partner with UNC Health to improve the relationship between patients and clinicians and allow clinicians more time to interact with their patients.”

About UNC Health

UNC Health is a state entity and an affiliated enterprise of the University of North Carolina system, comprised of nearly 20 hospitals and more than 900 clinics along with the clinical patient care programs of the UNC School of Medicine (SOM). It exists to improve the health and well-being of North Carolinians and others we serve and to further the teaching mission of the University of North Carolina SOM. UNC Health provided more than $800 million in Uncompensated Charity Care during the past five years. Our hospitals have received numerous awards and recognition for quality care, patient safety, and the overall patient experience.

About Abridge

Abridge was founded in 2018 to power deeper understanding in healthcare. The AI-powered platform was purpose-built for medical conversations, improving clinical documentation efficiencies while enabling clinicians to focus on what matters most—their patients. With support for 28+ languages and 50+ specialties, Abridge is able to support a wide range of clinician and patient encounters.

Abridge’s enterprise-grade technology transforms patient-clinician conversations into structured clinical notes in real-time with deep EMR integrations. Powered by Linked Evidence and their auditable AI, Abridge is the only company that maps AI-generated summaries to ground truth, helping providers quickly trust and verify the output. As pioneers in generative AI for healthcare, Abridge is setting the industry standards for the responsible deployment of AI across health systems. Abridge was also recently recognized on the 2024 Forbes AI 50 list, alongside companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, and others.