DUHS partners with Abridge to integrate AI note-taking software into clinical settings

The Duke University Health System is implementing AI note-taking technology in its facilities across the state, hoping to alleviate physicians’ administrative burden and allow them to spend more time directly caring for patients.

DUHS is partnering with Abridge, a Pennsylvania-based company that uses generative AI for real-time documentation in clinical settings. Abridge’s platform will be available to 5,000 providers at over 150 integrated practice and primary care clinics in North Carolina.

“I think this technology is really exciting. I've been in health IT and informatics for 25 years now; I've not seen anything that has been adopted this quickly,” said Eric Gon-Chee Poon, chief health information officer at DUHS and professor of medicine and of biostatistics and bioinformatics.

In most U.S. medical systems, physicians spend much of their time not just working with patients, but also filling out various forms that document information learned before, during and after patient meetings. These responsibilities come in addition to other administrative tasks less directly related to patient care.

“So you essentially were a typist and a health care provider at the same time — very hard to do both and distracting,” said Lawrence Greenblatt, professor of medicine and in the department of family medicine and community health. “Let's say you saw patients for four hours; it might take you 90 minutes or two hours to document everything that you did.”

In fact, a 2016 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that physicians spend nearly half of their time filling out electronic health records and completing “desk work,” compared to 27% of their time spent with patients. When the question was revisited by the American Medical Informatics Association in 2024 following a number of policy efforts designed to reduce this burden, three-fourths of doctors reported experiencing no significant decrease in the amount of time they spent on documentation. An even greater proportion said they felt the time spent on administrative tasks was not appropriate and impeded patient care.

DUHS is seeking to reduce this inefficiency. 

The new software will allow physicians to record their conversations with patients in the Haiku app used by Duke Health, freeing them from having to constantly switch their attention between their notes and their patient. Once the visit is over, they can stop recording and click a button prompting the program to create a note. A few seconds later, the AI-generated form is ready for the physician to review for accuracy, making any corrections before dropping it into DUHS’s electronic records system.

While the technology was only adopted recently, it is already fully integrated into the workflow of any providers working in the ambulatory setting, Poon said. He added that it is being tested in DUHS emergency rooms and is projected to be introduced to inpatient settings later this year.

“It really just makes seeing patients less effortful and more bringing back the joy of being a doctor,” Greenblatt said. “I love it.”

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