AI medical scribes and clinical documentation

Writing the note for the doctor after every visit, with AI that listens to the conversation

Back to the skin doctor in Texas from Market Segment 22.1, Electronic health record (EHR) software. After every visit, the doctor must write a note: what the patient said, what was examined, and what was decided. With 25 patients a day, that is 25 notes.

For years, doctors handled the note in one of two ways:

They dictated it to a transcriptionist, a person who types up the recording. Many transcriptionists were in India.
They typed it into the record themselves, often late into the evening.

Then the ambient scribe arrived, and changed this in about two years. An AI model listens to the conversation in the room and writes the note. The doctor only checks it.

Who writes the note after a visit: first the doctor dictated it and a transcriptionist, often in India, typed it; then the doctor typed it into the record, often late in the evening; now an ambient scribe listens in the room and writes it, and the doctor only checks it (Commure, Suki, Frontera).

This Market Segment is about the companies that sell the scribe. It also covers the clinical reference: the trusted source a doctor looks things up in while deciding on a treatment. The buyers are doctors, clinics and hospitals. It is a small Market Segment: four companies, and two more that are covered mainly in other Market Segments.

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

Keep reading, free

One more section is on this page: What this section holds. Sign in to read it here, in full.

Continue with Google

What this section holds

What this section holds

Back to the skin doctor's 25 notes from the start of this Market Segment. Four companies here write them.

Commure

with engineers in Bengaluru and Delhi, sells ambient documentation. Around it, AI agents automate the clinic's other paperwork: the forms a patient fills in on arrival, the orders and the billing.

Suki

with engineers in Bengaluru, sells a voice assistant that writes the note and answers the doctor's questions. It also sells a platform through which makers of patient records build the assistant into their own products.

Frontera

with engineers in Bengaluru, writes the documentation for clinicians who assess children's development.

Lenity Health

provides virtual medical assistants: people working remotely, who prepare patients' charts and act as scribes.

Two companies covered mainly in other Market Segments bring the reference and the learning:

Wolters Kluwer

with engineers in Pune and Chennai, is here for UpToDate, the clinical reference that most doctors in the world consult, and the drug information beside it. (More on it in Market Segment 43.2, Legal research and legal AI, in Industry Vertical 43, Legaltech.)

DailyRounds / Marrow

with engineers in Bengaluru, is here for its network of Indian doctors, who share clinical cases with each other. (More on it in Market Segment 42.1, Test prep and exam coaching platforms, in Industry Vertical 42, Edtech.)

The scribe that became a clinician's assistant.

The ambient scribe began by writing the note. It now does much more. It drafts the orders and suggests the billing codes. It prepares the letter that refers the patient to another doctor. And it answers the doctor's questions from the reference and the record. The same change removed the medical transcription work that India's back offices did for American doctors.

From scribe to assistant: after listening to the visit, the ambient scribe drafts the note, the orders, the billing codes and the referral letter, and answers the doctor's questions from the clinical reference and the record; the doctor checks each one.

So the skin doctor from the start of this Market Segment no longer types 25 notes each evening. The scribe listens and writes, the reference answers questions, and the doctor checks the result.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What digital health companies hire for.

← Previous in Digital health

Electronic health record (EHR) software

Next in Digital health →

Patient engagement and scheduling platforms