GI Alliance and Ambience Healthcare Partner to Build Foundational AI Documentation Models for Gastroenterology

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Jan 30, 2024, 06:00 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- GI Alliance, the nation's leading network of gastroenterology providers, has partnered with Ambience Healthcare to build a comprehensive suite of AI documentation tools, specifically customized for gastroenterology. Ambience's products are already deployed with leading regional GI practices throughout the United States, and GI Alliance physicians are currently leveraging these tools to reduce new patient documentation time by 83%. By repurposing time saved on documentation, clinicians are able to devote more time to comprehensive care and see additional patients.

At its core, GI Alliance operates on a philosophy grounded by three guiding principles: patient-first, quality-centric, and provider-led. These fundamentals drive the decisions, behaviors, and superior patient outcomes that make GI Alliance the industry leader in gastroenterology practices and innovation. Seeing the potential of generative AI to reduce documentation burden for clinicians and improve patient and clinician communication, GI Alliance began looking for a partner who could co-build customized solutions for gastroenterology.

Ambience Healthcare offers clinicians the most comprehensive suite of AI documentation tools in healthcare, designed to reduce clinician burnout, improve system efficiency, and enhance documentation of high quality care. Working together, both organizations were able to create the most capable AI models in GI.

"We explored a variety of generative AI solutions on the market, but the documentation produced sounded too robotic, and was not specific enough for gastroenterology. This is the main challenge for AI tools in clinical documentation, they haven't been customized for GI medicine. By partnering with Ambience, we were able to build a network of products that have been custom built for GI." - Paul J. Berggreen, M.D. and Chief Strategy Officer of the GI Alliance.

Customizing AI for GI Medicine

One of the challenges for AI documentation technology is that every specialty has a different care model and different workflows. If these differences haven't been accounted for, clinicians struggle to adopt the product because they find it difficult to fit into their workflow and spend too much time editing the generated documentation. Ambience has worked side-by-side with GI Alliance clinicians to account for the nuances of GI documentation, including:

Support for complex visits, including IBD encounters
Dietary and nutritional assessments
Documentation support for clinical pathway adherence
Automating common GI scoring systems, such as Bristol stool chart and Glasgow-Blatchford bleeding scores
Accurate capture of prior diagnostic procedures and pathology reports

Clinicians can also easily customize their notes from a variety of formatting options, based on their individual preferences. With Ambience's suite of AI tools, clinicians are now experiencing fewer symptoms of burnout, while feeling more present with their patients.

"The true advantage of this innovative solution lies in its ability to enable clinicians to concentrate solely on delivering top-notch patient care, with the confidence that Ambience will create a high-quality note on their behalf, available immediately after the visit. Our team has diligently ensured that this tool not only fulfills documentation requirements but also accommodates clinicians' individual preferences, from succinct notes to more detailed, diagnosis-based assessments and plans. Furthermore, we have rigorously tested its compatibility with the workflow demands of our gastroenterologists," said Nancy Farrar, P.A.-C, Executive Director of Clinical Informatics at GI Alliance.

For clinicians across all specialties, and available soon for all GI Alliance members, Ambience Healthcare offers the most comprehensive suite of AI documentation tools including:

AutoScribe: A real-time AI medical scribe that generates comprehensive notes across all clinical specialties and integrates directly with all major EMRs;
AutoCDI: A point-of-care CDI assistant that analyzes conversations and past EMR context to ensure that ICD-10 codes, CPT codes, and documentation all appropriately support each other, as well as full audit trails for revenue cycle teams;
AutoRefer: AI software that improves handoffs by composing clinically relevant and well-organized referral letters to specialists for expert consult and from specialists back to primary care for long-term management;
AutoAVS: An after-visit summary tool that creates comprehensive educational handouts for patients and their families, tailored specifically to each visit, and translated into their language of preference;
AutoPrep (coming soon): Intelligent pre-charting to assist the clinician in catching up on context and designing the agenda for the visit.

By leveraging the Ambience AI operating system, gastroenterologists with GI Alliance are already seeing significant results. At Arizona Digestive Health, Dr. Yvette Lam is currently saving 5-6 hours per week, and seeing significant improvements with patient and clinician communication.

"Other scribing solutions were not compatible with my workflow and notes started to pile up. Ambience AutoScribe slots into my patient care routine, enabling me to consistently complete my charts on the same day while eliminating multitasking during visits. It accurately captures the details of each conversation and summarizes concisely, so that I can focus on important medical information and make comprehensive decisions and recommendations. With AutoAVS, I've also been able to save time and clearly communicate appointment summaries and treatment plans for my patients and their families," said Dr. Yvette Lam, Arizona Digestive Health, powered by GI Alliance.

About GI Alliance:
GI Alliance is a physician-led and majority physician-owned GI practice management company providing services to over 800 independent gastroenterologists operating in Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Washington, and now Rhode Island. GI Alliance managed practices focus on providing the highest-quality care to their patients. In addition to providing operational support for practices, GI Alliance is working to unite gastroenterologists nationwide by aligning interests and improving patient care.

*GI Alliance did not receive funding to issue this press release, and neither GI Alliance nor any of its members or employees have any financial interest in Ambience Healthcare.

About Ambience Healthcare:
The mission of Ambience Healthcare is to supercharge clinicians with breakthrough generative AI technology. Leading healthcare systems and organizations across North America partner with Ambience Healthcare to reduce clinician burnout, improve system efficiency, and enable high-quality care. Founded in 2020 by Mike Ng and Nikhil Buduma, Ambience is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and backed by Kleiner Perkins, OpenAI Startup Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Optum Ventures, Human Capital, Martin Ventures, AIX Ventures, AirTree Ventures, John Doerr, Jeff Dean, Richard Socher, Pieter Abbeel, Anne Wojcicki, Eren Bali, Jay Desai, Nish Bhat, Matt Mochary, and others. To learn more, visit ambiencehealthcare.com.