Abridge raises $30M to build out its medical conversation platform

The company was recently named by Epic as the first Pal in its “Partners and Pals” program

Abridge is a company that helps patients record their doctor appointments, using machine learning to transcribe and highlight the most important parts of the conversation. The idea was helps patient better understand the details of what their doctors had told them by distilling it down and making it easy to understand.

On Thursday, the company announced a $30 million Series B funding round, led by Spark Capital, along with existing investor Bessemer Venture Partners, and several of what it calls "leading healthcare innovators," such as CVS Health Ventures, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Lifepoint Health, Mayo Clinic, SCAN Group, UC Investments, and the American College of Cardiology.

Abridge says it will use the funding to support large-scale health system rollouts and accelerate product advances that will create additional value for patients, clinicians, and health systems.

Founded in 2018, and launched in 2020, Abridge's initial product was aimed at patients, using machine learning to give users a transcript of the medical parts of their appointments, highlighting important definitions and takeaways, such as what next steps a patient is supposed to take, or instructions on how to properly take their medication. 

Its enterprise solution, meanwhile, breaks down the conversation into different headings including social history, which can include the patient's alcohol usage and smoking; diagnostics and appointments, including when and where the patient should be going for follow-ups; and medications that the physician prescribed during the visit. 

The company's dataset is derived from more than 1.5 million medical encounters, and Abridge has already helped more than 2,000 clinicians with their enterprise solutions.

In recent implementations, over 91% of notes across over 40 specialties were drafted solely with their AI, requiring minimal input from the clinician.

This news follows partnerships earlier this year with provider enablement platform IKS Health to help stem provider burnout, which also included an undisclosed investment in Abridge; and a partnership with The University of Kansas Health System to serve and support more than 1,500 practicing physicians across The University of Kansas Health System’s over 140 locations.

Most recently, Abridge was named by Epic as the first Pal in its “Partners and Pals” program. 

“The investment and support of these iconic institutions is a game-changer for Abridge, dramatically accelerating what we can do to solve a critical issue facing every health system,” Dr. Shiv Rao, co-founder and CEO of Abridge, said in a statement. 

“We are grateful to have an extraordinary and rapidly expanding group of partners who share our ambition to preserve the empathy and humanity in healthcare by enabling clinicians to be more present with their patients.”

(Image source: abridge.com)