For Clinicians, by Clinicians: What CMIOs Value in Ambient AI
David McSwain, MD, CMIO of Chapel Hill-based UNC Health, had a tough decision to make: which ambient AI technology should he implement for the system’s 7,000 physicians practicing across the state of North Carolina? The answer came at the end of a rigorous evaluation process.
Over 100 clinicians participated in an ambient AI pilot, spanning multiple specialties and sites. Epic signal data tracked changes in workflow and documentation behavior. But in the end, it wasn’t the dashboard that tipped the scales. It was the emotional texture of the feedback.
One clinician, he recalled, had written a resignation letter. After using Abridge, she chose not to submit it and handed it to a colleague instead, as a kind of thank-you. Others described the platform as “life-changing.” Some said it allowed them to practice longer. One physician told a system leader, “This makes me a better doctor.”
CMIOs, by necessity, are tough to impress. As the bridge between healthcare technology and clinical reality, CMIOs are trained to be skeptical—and for good reason. They’ve seen countless tools arrive with big promises, only to burden workflows with extra steps and added complexity. In many cases, the best-case scenario is begrudging acceptance.
That’s what made a recent panel of informatics leaders from three health systems feel different. Three experienced CMIOs, each deeply familiar with the weight physicians carry, aligned around a rare conclusion: here is a technology not merely tolerated, but actively embraced.
Dr. McSwain, Rebecca Hemphill, MD, of MaineHealth, and Bonnie Boles, MD, of Tanner Health have all found common ground in their clinicians’ experiences: The technologies clinicians value most aren’t those that overhaul how they work; they’re those that help them feel like themselves again.
One Tanner clinician, skeptical after an earlier ambient pilot fell short, ran a head-to-head comparison by recording the same visit using two vendors, then reviewing the notes side by side. Her reaction was immediate: “I don’t want to continue working if I can’t keep Abridge.”
Founded in 2018 by practicing cardiologist Shiv Rao, MD—who continues to serve as CEO—Abridge is clinician-led, something CMIOs and end-users notice in the feedback-driven details, the clinician-focused roadmap, and the scalability of the product.
Glowing clinician feedback isn’t the only metric CMIOs use to make significant technology decisions. The clinician-led roadmap, partnership practice honed on over 100 implementations, and a product that drives results all helped tip the scales to Abridge for these three systems.
Roadmap Powered by Clinician Feedback
Abridge has a feedback-hungry culture. Dr. Rao and his team actively seek out unfiltered partner input, and that input frequently results in product enhancements.
The company has shorthand for the rigor it fuels itself on: eating glass, a metaphor for embracing difficulty and building resilience through listening and iterating. By taking clinician input seriously, the end result is a roadmap in essence developed by the clinicians at Abridge’s partner health systems.
That alignment, he said, didn’t come from guesswork or good luck—it came from a company serious about physician input from day one. CMIOs can quickly tell whether a roadmap aligns with theirs. They’re not just decision-makers but end users too, after all.
“As a practicing internist, I’ve been using Abridge as well,” Dr. Hemphill noted. “I continue to be impressed with the advancement and the roadmap. What we see ahead has been really exciting.”
Partnership That Scales
Today, Abridge’s technology is used across more than 100 health systems to turn real-time conversations into accurate, billable notes with minimal editing. MaineHealth, Tanner Health, and UNC Health are three of those partners, with CMIOs who see their relationship with Abridge as real and reciprocal.
“The Abridge team has been very responsive and interested in our feedback, and we have not hesitated to provide it,” said Dr. Hemphill of MaineHealth. “With technology that’s evolving so rapidly, having that open communication has been key. Our users have provided important suggestions and they hear back from Abridge about what can and can’t be done.”
At Tanner Health, Dr. Boles was pleased to see Abridge stay engaged long after the rollout. “We didn’t want to implement and then have our vendor not be a partner and disappear,” she said. “What we found with Abridge is that they did welcome feedback.”
This is the long game for Abridge. And in healthcare, CMIOs note, consistent presence is a game-changer.
“This is going to be a very competitive space, and the folks who are going to win are the ones that partner most closely with their end users,” Dr. McSwain added. “And that’s been one of the most striking things about Abridge—not because we asked them to behave that way, but because it’s how they’re built.”
A Product Clinicians Love
At Tanner Health, a five-hospital community system in west Georgia and east Alabama, Abridge isn’t just a documentation platform—it’s a career enhancement technology. “We’re not associated with an academic medical center,” said Dr. Boles, “and we’re not in a big city.” But Abridge, she noted, has helped Tanner stand out in a competitive market, particularly among physicians seeking better work-life balance.
The appeal isn’t limited to new recruits. Some of Tanner’s longest-serving physicians have embraced the technology too, extending their careers. With more than two in five practicing physicians reaching traditional retirement age within the next decade, Abridge’s adoption among early- and late-career clinicians is dually important.
“We have octogenarian primary care providers who look like they’re in their sixties,” she said, “and they’ve adopted ambient listening as a way to be able to continue to see patients because it has decreased a lot of the burden.”
The delight spans generations, specialties, care settings, and languages. For a company as obsessive about feedback as Abridge, the irony isn’t lost. Feedback is flowing in the other direction, too, with a steady stream of unsolicited, enthusiastic and deeply appreciative reactions from clinicians about technology that finally meets a need they endured for years.
“In our role as CMIO, we usually only hear from people when things aren’t going well,” Dr. Hemphill said. Abridge reversed that trend. “I hear regularly from people thanking me and just saying what a terrific impact this tool has had on their practice, their joy of practicing medicine and their ability to do their work and enjoy it.”
