At the 10th Annual Becker’s Health IT + RCM + Digital Health Conference in Chicago, conversations about artificial intelligence took on a new tone. The focus was less on algorithms and automation and more on people — how intelligence in healthcare begins not in data, but in dialogue.
Amid those discussions, Abridge helped steer curiosity in new directions.
It was a week that stretched from science to art — from the ROI of ambient AI to the resilience it takes to lead in healthcare. Abridge CEO and Co-Founder Shiv Rao, MD, put words to what has been a defining year for artificial intelligence. “We’ve got this incredible opportunity to build the right things in the right order,” he said, “and then to measure them responsibly and scale them.”
Abridge CFO Sagar Sanghvi reframed AI’s value through both human and financial outcomes. And Olympic champion Simone Biles joined Dr. Rao on stage to talk about pressure, courage, and balance — landing on a message that resonated deeply with clinicians navigating their own high-performance demands.
Threaded through each conversation was the same conviction: that the next chapter of AI in healthcare will be defined less by algorithms and more by the people using it. Across payers and providers, leaders described a shift from automation to empathy, from documentation to decision-making, and from isolated innovation to shared accountability.
What follows are insights from across Abridge’s conversations at Becker’s — a portrait of how leading health systems are transforming care by grounding innovation in trust and building intelligence at the point of conversation.
Building trust, not just solutions
Abridge brought together a cross-section of healthcare’s clinical and technology leaders for its own small gathering within the event: Art and Science: An Executive Summit on Intelligence at the Point of Conversation. Leaders from Highmark Health, UPMC, Duke Health, Reid Health and Endeavor Health shared how ambient AI is reshaping daily practice in ways that extend far beyond documentation.
At UPMC, where Abridge was first incubated, Chief Technology Officer Chris Carmody recalled how the health system rigorously tested the technology. “We knew the technology was special,” he said. With UPMC now migrating to a single Epic foundation, Mr. Carmody said the system plans to expand Abridge to 12,000 physicians this year — a scale that reflects both trust in the product and belief in its people.
At Richmond, Ind.-based Reid Health, Chief Nursing Officer Misti Foust-Cofield saw something rare in technology adoption: joy. “We quickly engaged with Abridge, with the focus truly being on human connection and bringing the joy back to the work at the bedside,” she said.
For Endeavor Health, formed from the merger of four Illinois systems, the technology became a bridge to unity. Justin Brueck, System Vice President of Innovation and Research, saw burnout drop 40 percent after deployment.
Across systems, leaders emphasized that adoption succeeds when it starts with people, not products. As David Claxton, Senior Consultant for AI and Technology Engagement at Duke Health, observed, “This doesn’t feel like a commercial contract. It feels like a true partnership.”
That partnership extends beyond implementation into measurement. Mr. Sanghvi, Abridge’s first CFO, described how his team helps partners connect the emotional return of AI with the financial one. “The potential of AI is unlike anything we’ve seen before,” he said. “Measuring that impact has to happen much earlier in the partnership cycle.”
The results are already visible: across Abridge’s network, health systems have reported a 55 percent reduction in burnout, a 21 percent decrease in time to close notes, and up to a 11 percent increase in work RVUs, driven by more accurate documentation. But for Mr. Sanghvi and others at Abridge, data is only half the picture. “We’re obsessed with trying to figure out how to make our customer’s lives better, and that is everyone from the end clinician to the CFO who’s dealing with macro pressures right now that are unprecedented,” he said.
The art of resilience
If the summit captured the science of intelligence, the next day revealed its art. On the Becker’s mainstage, Dr. Rao welcomed Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history and a global advocate for mental health. Their conversation spanned pressure, performance, and purpose.
From her early days in foster care to the moment a rainy Texas field trip led her into a gymnastics gym, Biles described a life shaped as much by chance as by choice. What followed was a masterclass in perseverance: learning to fall, recalibrate and show up.
When she spoke about her public decision at the Tokyo Olympics to pause competition and protect her mental health, the ballroom fell silent. “I was in such good physical shape that at that point I neglected my mental health, and I wasn’t seeing the effect that it had on me,” Ms. Biles said, reflecting on her preparation for the 2020 Summer Olympics, held in 2021. After developing the “twisties” — a sudden loss of air awareness that made competing unsafe — she withdrew from several events to safeguard her well-being. She later returned for the balance beam, earning a bronze medal and sparking a global conversation about mental health in elite sports.
“In the very beginning, it was hard because people couldn’t see that it was a mental injury instead of a physical one,” Ms. Biles told the audience. “There were a lot of people coming up to me like, ‘Oh, what’s happening?’ And I’m like, you would never tell that to somebody with a boot. Do you guys want me to walk around with a helmet? Because at this point, it’s kind of a mental injury.”
Her leadership helped reframe resilience and normalize conversations about mental health, much as society has long accepted discussions of physical injury. “Kids will grow up and see it as a norm and get the help that they deserve and start it early so it becomes routine,” she said.
Ms. Biles also spoke about boundaries, therapy and the evolving definition of resilience — how it is forged not only in endurance, but in rest. She emphasized the value of a support network: “My support system is very, very big and very, very strong.”
Her message resonated deeply with the executives and physicians in the room, many of whom operate in their own high-stakes environments where precision is demanded and rest is rare. Dr. Rao drew the connection directly: “We have a refrain at Abridge that pressure makes diamonds, but the reality is — only to a point before it breaks. You have to have your finger on the pulse of what that point is.”
From data to dialogue
By week’s end, a single refrain tied the conversations together — one that Dr. Rao calls a core value at Abridge: “Feedback is our oxygen.”
It’s the same principle that drives progress in every domain of healthcare: listen, learn, adapt. Across the sessions, a shift was unmistakable — from data to dialogue, from automation to understanding, from technology as an end to technology in service of people.
That evolution is what made this year’s gathering distinct. The conversations weren’t about chasing the next breakthrough, but about building the trust, empathy and intelligence required to make breakthroughs matter. In an industry often defined by speed and scale, this year’s event stood apart for slowing down — to ask not just what we can build with AI, but what kind of world we want to build through it.
At the Becker's 11th Annual IT + Revenue Cycle Conference: The Future of AI & Digital Health, taking place September 14–17 in Chicago, healthcare executives and digital leaders from across the country will come together to explore how AI, interoperability, cybersecurity, and revenue cycle innovation are transforming care delivery, strengthening financial performance, and driving the next era of digital health. Apply for complimentary registration now.