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AI clinical documentation tools — tools that use artificial intelligence to securely summarize medical information from spoken conversations — are becoming widely recognized as resources that ease clinicians’ workloads so they can spend more time with patients.

While some hospitals have implemented these tools in their facilities, Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente recently took the plunge and rolled out the tool Abridge across 40 of their hospitals and 600 of their medical offices within eight states and the District of Columbia. In doing so, they join a growing list of large health system customers across the country who’ve done the same, from Emory Healthcare and UChicago Medicine, to Yale New Haven Health System and the University of Kansas Health System.

"By reducing administrative tasks, we're making it easier for our physicians to focus on patients and foster an environment where they can provide effective communication and transparency while meeting the individual needs of each patient who comes to them for care,” said Ramin Davidoff, M.D., executive medical director and chair of the board with the Southern California Permanente Medical Group, in a statement. “Creating space for the patient and the physician connection is what inspired us to implement this technology. And we hope that those connections and improved efficiencies will help with the sustainability of the practice of medicine for many doctors.”