Hospital for Special Surgery Selects Abridge to Advance Orthopedic AI Documentation
New York, NY, Pittsburgh, PA—July 24, 2025—Abridge today announced its collaboration with Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) to enhance clinical documentation, communication and care outcomes—starting at the point of conversation. HSS, the world’s No. 1 health system for orthopedics, is implementing the Abridge AI platform enterprise to enhance care for approximately 200,000 patients annually. As the hospital of choice for athletes from more than 100 professional sports teams and a destination for patients from all 50 states and over 100 countries, HSS performs more than 40,000 surgeries each year. With the lowest orthopedic readmission rates in the nation, it is an ideal environment for advanced, ambient listening technology that helps clinicians document care more efficiently.
“Ambient scribing was just the beginning,” said Dr. Ashis Barad, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at HSS. “With Abridge’s foundational AI expertise alongside our orthopedic leadership, we can dramatically elevate clinical note quality, communication, and ultimately, care outcomes. What distinguishes this collaboration is Abridge’s combination of AI expertise and a genuine commitment to developing solutions together that align with the specific needs of orthopedic care. This is the kind of collaborator we value—innovative, forward-thinking, and committed to growing alongside us.”
The Abridge AI platform is designed for the depth and complexity of orthopedic surgical documentation. HSS is a living laboratory for innovation, serving its unique patient population with highly individualized care. Abridge’s specialty-specific documentation and revenue cycle management technology complement this adaptable approach.
“At HSS, Ambient AI is transforming the patient experience by quietly capturing clinical conversations in real time—freeing doctors from screens and paperwork so they can focus entirely on care,” said Answorth Allen, MD, Associate Surgeon-in-Chief and a sports medicine surgeon at HSS. “It’s a behind-the-scenes innovation that’s making healthcare more human.”
In each clinician-patient conversation, Abridge automatically detects care setting, specialty, and language, to generate the appropriate clinical documentation in real time. Across outpatient, inpatient, and emergency department settings and supporting 55+ specialties and 28 languages, Abridge silently works in the background so clinicians can focus on what matters most: their patients.
The upcoming orthopedic specialty documentation enhancements will leverage Abridge’s proven AI platform with the unmatched orthopedic expertise of HSS—producing notes that more fully capture details about imaging, laterality, risks, and treatment options, resulting in clearer documentation, improved coding precision, and more efficient clinical workflows.
“We are going a million miles deep on each specialty and care setting to deliver documentation that works as both the perfect clinical artifact and compliant note,” said Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and Co-Founder of Abridge. “Transforming care at scale is incredibly complex. Specialty-focused institutions like HSS are catalysts for driving meaningful, scalable innovation for all of our enterprise partners.”
About Hospital for Special Surgery
HSS is the world’s leading academic medical center focused on musculoskeletal health. At its core is Hospital for Special Surgery, nationally ranked No. 1 in orthopedics (for the 15th consecutive year), No. 3 in rheumatology by U.S. News & World Report (2024-2025), and the best pediatric orthopedic hospital in NY, NJ and CT by U.S. News & World Report “Best Children’s Hospitals” list (2024-2025). In a survey of medical professionals in more than 20 countries by Newsweek, HSS is ranked world #1 in orthopedics for a fifth consecutive year (2025). Founded in 1863, the Hospital has the lowest readmission rates in the nation for orthopedics, and among the lowest infection and complication rates. HSS was the first in New York State to receive Magnet Recognition for Excellence in Nursing Service from the American Nurses Credentialing Center five consecutive times. An affiliate of Weill Cornell Medical College, HSS has a main campus in New York City and facilities in New Jersey, Connecticut and in the Long Island and Westchester County regions of New York State, as well as in Florida. In addition to patient care, HSS leads the field in research, innovation and education. The HSS Research Institute comprises 20 laboratories and 300 staff members focused on leading the advancement of musculoskeletal health through prevention of degeneration, tissue repair and tissue regeneration. In addition, more than 200 HSS clinical investigators are working to improve patient outcomes through better ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat orthopedic, rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases. The HSS Innovation Institute works to realize the potential of new drugs, therapeutics and devices. The HSS Education Institute is a trusted leader in advancing musculoskeletal knowledge and research for physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, academic trainees, and consumers in more than 165 countries. The institution is collaborating with medical centers and other organizations to advance the quality and value of musculoskeletal care and to make world-class HSS care more widely accessible nationally and internationally. www.hss.edu.
About Abridge
Abridge was founded in 2018 to power deeper understanding in healthcare. The enterprise-grade AI platform transforms medical conversations into clinically useful and billable documentation at the point of care, reducing administrative burden and clinician burnout while improving patient experience. With deep EHR integration, support for 28+ languages, and 50+ specialties, Abridge is used across a wide range of care settings, including outpatient, emergency department, and inpatient.
Abridge’s enterprise-grade AI platform is purpose-built for healthcare. Supported by Linked Evidence, Abridge is the only solution that maps AI-generated summaries to source data, helping clinicians quickly trust and verify the output. As a pioneer in generative AI for healthcare, Abridge is setting the industry standard for the responsible deployment of AI across health systems.
Abridge was awarded Best in KLAS 2025 for Ambient AI in addition to other accolades, including Forbes 2025 AI 50 List, TIME Best Inventions of 2024, and Fortune’s 2024 AI 50 Innovators.
