AI as Enterprise Infrastructure: Inova’s Journey from Primary Care to 40+ Specialties
AI has become core infrastructure for health systems, supporting clinical, operational, and financial needs at scale. At Inova Health System, that shift is shaping how care is delivered, starting with primary care and expanding across the enterprise.
Overview
- Locations in Northern VA and Washington, DC
- 4M+ patient visits annually
- 9,400+ clinicians
- 40+ specialties live on Abridge
Driving measurable impact in primary care
Inova’s adoption of Abridge began in primary care, where improving clinician experience, saving time, and increasing patient access were key priorities.
Using Abridge for individual primary care visits, Inova reduced “pajama time” documentation from up to two hours per night to approximately 25 minutes for roughly 350 primary care physicians (view fig 1).
By reducing documentation burden, Inova created meaningful capacity, freeing up clinician time that could be better spent delivering patient care. As Inova leaders have emphasized, expanding access in primary care isn’t just about hiring more clinicians, but about rethinking how care is delivered.
From early success to expansion across specialties
As those gains became clear, demand for Abridge grew beyond primary care. What began as ambient documentation for family medicine expanded across 40+ specialties, as clinicians sought the same time savings, accuracy, and usability in their own workflows. In this video, Inova clinicians—from behavioral health to oncology to orthopedic surgery—share how Abridge has evolved to deliver specialty-specific notes that are complete, clinically accurate, and aligned with how specialists actually practice.
That expansion was driven by trust, validated through early results, and by a platform capable of adapting to the realities of specialty care.
Inova Health
“We didn’t buy a product; we bought a future.”
Extending ambient documentation across care models
The Abridge platform is also enabling new care models at Inova, including shared medical visits, designed to create capacity and expand patient access. In these visits, Abridge supports documentation for up to 20 patients in a single session, helping to make group-based care operationally feasible without disrupting clinical workflows.
Inova’s experience reflects a broader shift across healthcare. Health systems increasingly need real-time intelligence for clinical conversations that supports care delivery, streamlines operations, and enables enterprise workflows without adding burden.
