WashU Medicine and BJC Health Bring Abridge to 4,000 Clinicians

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Center for Health AI at WashU Medicine and BJC Health has expanded the Abridge platform across BJC Health’s East Region. The expansion follows the results of a rigorous evaluation of a pilot program and was driven by strong clinician demand.

Following a successful initial rollout to 450 clinicians in 2025, WashU Medicine and BJC Health have continued to expand access to Abridge across the system, with approximately 4,000 clinicians now able to use the platform.

"Our evaluation examined how much time physicians spent on documentation, and how the technology affected physician and patient experience," said Philip Payne, PhD, Chief Health AI Officer for BJC Health and WashU Medicine. "We found the Abridge technology significantly reduced documentation time, particularly after-hours work, and improved the experience for physicians. Physicians also reported that the technology helped them focus more fully on their interactions with patients. Rigorous evaluation is essential to understanding whether AI tools deliver meaningful value in clinical practice, and the Center for Health AI has the expertise to evaluate AI tools like Abridge, ensuring they truly improve provider well-being and patient care.”

The expansion was driven by peer-to-peer clinician advocacy, as well as strong results from an evaluation of the initial deployment that showed rising efficacy with increased use of the Abridge technology. Using encounter-level data, clinicians recorded reductions in documentation time during the pilot program:

• Documentation time reduction: 8% initially, increased to 15% by day 150
• After-hours documentation reduction: 6% initially, increased to 20% by day 150

Clinicians in outpatient settings across family medicine, internal medicine, OB/GYN, pediatrics, and orthopedic surgery saw particularly strong adoption.

“What’s powerful about the Center for Health AI’s research is that it shows the more clinicians use the platform, the more time they save,” said Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and Co-Founder of Abridge. “Together, we’re developing and validating the compounding benefits of enterprise-grade AI.”

About Abridge

Founded in 2018, Abridge is the first AI-native clinician intelligence platform organized around the patient, built for clinicians, and designed to help health systems coordinate the clinical, financial, and evidence-based decisions for every moment of care. Powered by purpose-built AI for healthcare, Abridge connects patients, providers, payers, and life sciences companies. This year, the platform will support more than 100 million patient-clinician conversations across 300 of the largest and most complex health systems in the U.S. With deep EHR integration, Abridge’s automatic speech recognition and note generation has been validated to capture encounters in 28+ languages across specialties and care settings.

Abridge is setting the industry standard for the responsible deployment of AI across health systems. Features like Linked Evidence map AI-generated clinical documentation to source data, helping clinicians quickly trust and verify the output.

Abridge was awarded Best in KLAS for Ambient AI in 2025 and 2026, in addition to other accolades, including TIME Best Inventions of 2024 and 2025, CNBC Disruptor 2025, and Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies 2025.