When UChicago Medicine began piloting ambient AI technology in an emergency department last year, physicians quickly found a limitation: the tool was optimized for outpatient encounters rather than the fast-paced ED environment where patients present with acute medical needs.
Ambient documentation tools were largely designed around clinical notetaking workflows in primary care and other outpatient settings — where patients typically have an established relationship with their physician and may be discussing multiple ongoing or chronic health conditions during a visit. That structure created challenges in the ED, where physicians focus on identifying and treating immediate concerns, Vishal Gupta, MD, clinical associate of medicine and emergency medicine specialist at UChicago Medicine, told Becker’s.
“In the ER, we were finding that when we mention these things while interacting with the patient, the assessment and plan portion of the note would come up with a lot of the chronic issues and not the main reason they were there,” he explained.
The system began piloting Abridge’s AI documentation tool at its campus in Crown Point, Ind., about a year ago. The site has a smaller emergency department than UChicago Medicine’s flagship trauma center in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, making it a strategic setting to test the tool in a more controlled environment. The decision followed positive results in ambulatory care, where an earlier pilot involving 200 physicians showed notable reductions in cognitive load, improvements in clinician wellness and increases in patient satisfaction scores.
To address the unique demands of ED documentation, UChicago Medicine collaborated closely with Abridge to refine the tool. Based on user feedback, the company added a “medical decision-making” section to the note to better capture the physician’s assessment and immediate treatment plan.
The change, Dr. Gupta said, made the tool much more applicable to emergency settings, where documentation must clearly reflect real-time decisions and next steps for acute issues.
While data collection from the Crown Point pilot is ongoing, Dr. Gupta said anecdotal feedback from ED physicians has been overwhelmingly positive. As word spread about how the tool helped clinicians complete notes more efficiently, demand grew across the system.
“Other people heard about this and saw that people were getting their notes done quicker,” he said. “They were able to talk to the patients for a little bit longer.”
UChicago Medicine plans to bring the technology to the ED at its flagship hospital in early 2026, which sees around 70,000 patients annually. It is also working with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to eventually support use among residents.
Emergency department patients have also taken notice of the tool’s value. “A lot of them seem to appreciate that I can sit down and focus fully on talking to them,” Dr. Gupta said.
While the most visible benefit is reduced documentation time — a known driver of burnout — Dr. Gupta said the tool has also reinforced the value of clear communication. A clear, well-structured note, he added, often mirrors the clarity of a physician’s explanation during care.
