Union Square Ventures LLC

Generative AI company Abridge announced a partnership with Northern California-based healthcare system Sutter Health, which will allow Abridge’s clinical documentation software to be available to Sutter clinicians. Abridge’s software is a generative AI for clinical conversation that reduces provider workload by automating note-taking. The software will be directly embedded into Sutter’s Epic EMR system. The aim of the Abridge-Sutter partnership is to reduce provider burnout while bettering patient experiences. "Clinicians often don’t have time to write detailed patient Instructions and summaries that reflect the details from their conversation that would most benefit the patient. This is a prime use case for generative AI, and it’s a privilege to team up with those from Sutter Health on this new patient-centered initiative," Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and founder of Abridge, said in a statement. THE LARGER TREND Physicians spend a significant amount of time on administrative tasks such as writing notes, and administrative workload contributes to physician burnout, which is a large issue in the healthcare ecosystem. Abridge launched in 2020 with $15 million in seed and Series A funding. This funding round was led by Union Square Ventures and UPMC, with additional funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Pillar and KdT Ventures. In 2022, the medical scribe company raised $12.5 million in Series A-1 funding with the same group of investors. Other investors in this round included AI expert Yoshua Bengio and Whistler Capital. The Pittsburgh-based company announced a $30 million dollar Series B led by Spark Capital. Spark has backed other genAI companies, including AI safety and research startup Anthropic. In February, Abridge announced a $150 million Series C investment powered by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures and CVS Health Ventures. Abridge also announced a partnership with Connecticut-based Yale New Haven Health system, which will use its generative AI solution in hospitals across the state. Last year, Sutter Health announced a new San Francisco-based innovation center for research and development as a build-out from the company’s Innovation Hatchery, which was founded in 2017 to advance technology in healthcare. The health system also acquired Santa Barbara Sansum Clinic, expanding its reach to California’s Central Coast, and, in March, it announced it had acquired five radiation oncology centers in Northern California.

Physicians spend significant time outside of patient visits working on administrative tasks like writing clinical notes. Health systems across the country are turning to technology like generative AI tools to reduce the burden of documentation. Abridge, a startup that develops generative AI tools for medical documentation, has notched another major health system partnership to put its technology in front of more physicians. Sutter Health, a health system with a footprint across Northern California, will launch Abridge's platform in early April with various doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants from both primary and specialty care, the health system said Wednesday. The large not-for-profit, integrated health system, which operates 22 hospitals, wants to use Abridge's gen AI-based technology to benefit physicians and improve patients’ experiences by helping support more focused face-time with clinicians, executives said. “We are highly focused on innovation as a lever to help us achieve our vision and mission of delivering safe, high quality, equitable care to all of our patients. Sutter is equally committed to the thoughtful integration of emerging technologies like AI in healthcare that support our physicians to help deliver on that mission," Warner Thomas, president and CEO at Sutter Health, in a statement. The health system has more than 57,000 staff and clinicians and 12,000+ affiliated physicians currently serve more than 3 million patients across its hospitals, ambulatory clinics and medical practices. The tie-up with Sutter Health broadens Abridge's reach into the California market, on the heels of its partnership with UCI Health, the health system of the University of California, Irvine. Pittsburgh-based Abridge, one of Fierce Healthcare's Fierce 15 of 2024 honorees, uses AI to increase the speed and accuracy of medical note-taking, leveraging a proprietary data set derived from more than 1.5 million medical encounters. The company's AI converts a patient-clinician conversation into a structured clinical note draft in real time and integrates it seamlessly into the electronic health record system. Once clinicians review and verify the note, their paperwork is complete. Abridge is available in more than 14 languages and over 50 specialties. Sutter sees that as a distinct advantage as it serves a diverse patient population, executives said. Physicians spend significant time outside of patient visits working on administrative tasks like writing clinical notes. Health systems across the country are turning to technology like generative AI tools to reduce the burden of documentation. Less cognitive load has been shown to directly correlate with reductions in clinician burnout. “The technology is designed to fit easily into our teams’ day-to-day workflows inside Epic and will help us better serve our patients by eliminating the burden of clinical documentation that can detract from patient-clinician interactions,” said Laura Wilt, chief digital officer at Sutter Health. Founded in 2018, Abridge continues to rapidly grow and ink new partnerships with health systems to deploy its technology. Yale New Haven Health System, Emory Healthcare, The University of Kansas Health System, UPMC, and dozens of other health systems also are using Abridge's AI-based clinical documentation technology. Around 5,000 doctors currently use the company's software. As part of its collaboration with Sutter Health, Abridge also plans to roll out a generative AI feature for patients.  The health system will work with Abridge to integrate patient-facing summaries into the EHR. Studies have shown that 40% to 80% of the medical information patients hear during office visits is forgotten immediately, and that clinical documentation does not always cover the details from medical encounters that patients wish to revisit and better understand. The 'patient summary' tool will be accessible to patients in post-visit digital documents to provide concise information and details about a diagnosis or treatment. Patient summaries are a prime use case for generative AI, noted Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and founder of Abridge.  “Clinicians often don’t have time to write detailed patient instructions and summaries that reflect the details from their conversation that would most benefit the patient,” he said. In a major win for the company, Epic integrated the company’s generative AI for clinical documentation into its EHR workflow as part of the tech giant's new third-party vendor program. In past interviews, Rao has pointed to key distinctions in Abridge's capabilities such as the company's "Linked Evidence" feature that maps any highlighted region within a summary to the substantiating evidence in the source transcript. The company is actively developing novel ways to personalize notes, integrate more deeply into the electronic health record and provide clinicians with after-visit insights, executives said. Abridge recently banked a hefty $150 million series C funding round backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Redpoint Ventures along with Union Square Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Mass General Brigham Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Fund (AIDIF), Kaiser Permanente Ventures and CVS Health Ventures. That funding round included a strategic investment from chipmaker Nvidia. The two companies recently announced a collaboration to use Nvidia's compute resources, foundation models and expertise in efficiently deploying AI systems to bolster Abridge's work. Nvidia's computing power will support the company's research and help it scale a multilingual clinical conversation platform across the entire U.S. healthcare system, executives said. The company has raised $212.5 million to date. The market for generative AI tools to help manage medical documentation has been heating up with Microsoft's Nuance being a dominant player.  Investors are eager to back generative AI startups in the healthcare space. Ambience Healthcare recently reeled in $70 million for generative AI tools for clinicians. Nabla, an ambient AI assistant for practitioners, closed a $24 million series B round back in January.

Alpha Sophia is set to make waves at the LSI USA 2024 Emerging MedTech Summit in Dana Point, California, from March 18-22. Led by CEO Paul-Lukas Hoffschmidt, Alpha Sophia will unveil a major product update during the event, promising significant enhancements to its platform and model. Hoffschmidt will spearhead a thought leadership session on March 21 alongside industry experts Brad Patt (Tetrous), Robert Hamilton (Neurasignal), and James Peacock (Nocira). This session will mark the formal announcement of game-changing improvements to the Alpha Sophia platform, tailored to meet the needs of medtech sales leaders. The updates showcased at the LSI summit are poised to redefine the landscape of go-to-market tactics for the Medtech industry, offering innovative solutions that address the dynamic challenges faced by professionals in this field. Alpha Sophia remains committed to driving meaningful change and empowering sales professionals with cutting-edge tools and strategies. Baseimmune, a biotech company that uses proprietary, deep learning AI to predict future pathogen mutations to generate novel vaccines, has raised $11.3 million in a Series A funding round led by new investors MSD Global Health Innovation Fund and IQ Capital. Existing investors also too part in the round, including Hoxton Ventures, Creator Fund, Beast Ventures and Maki.vc. The funding will be used to accelerate development of Baseimmune’s three vaccine candidates currently in preclinical development for African swine fever, coronavirus, and malaria. The funding will also be used to advance its technology, add staff, increase the number of programs in development and accelerate new vaccine programs. To read more, click here. Abridge, which focuses on generative AI for clinical documentation, has raised $150 million in a Series C funding round. Abridge has also embarked on a new enterprise agreement with the Yale New Haven Health System, according to a press release. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round and will also join the board. Other new and existing investors include co-lead Redpoint Ventures, with support from IVP, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Wittington Ventures, Mass General Brigham Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Fund (AIDIF), Kaiser Permanente Ventures, and CVS Health Ventures. To read more, click here. Carewell, an online retailer focused serving family caregivers with tools and resources to care for their loved ones, has raised a $24.7 million Series B round. The goal is to further accelerate streamlining access to home health products, according to a press release. The principals of MBF Healthcare led the round, with participation from existing investors Sageview Capital and Headline among others. Additionally, the company has made several senior level hires amidst plans to relocate their headquarters to Miami. Additional investors in this round of funding include Primetime Partners, Nextview, Florida Opportunity Fund, and Anchor. To read more, click here. Redi Health has closed $14 million in a Series B funding round. The funding round was led by Blue Heron Capital. North Coast Ventures and existing investors Refinery Ventures, Mutual Capital Partners, Rev1 Ventures and M25 also took pat in the round. Redi Health combines health management technology to help people manage chronic conditions with digital pharma services. It will use the fresh capital to develop and launch new products, expand its network and accelerate overall growth, according to a press release. To read more, click here.