Mass General Brigham’s ambient documentation initiative has grown from an 850-person pilot to an enterprise-wide program with more than 2,700 active users.
When the Somerville, Mass.-based health system launched its large-scale pilot, the goal was to assess whether the AI-driven documentation tool could reduce clinician burnout and identify which provider types benefited most. The results were promising.
“Sixty percent of people in the pilot said they were likely to extend the length of their clinical career as a result of this technology,” Rebecca Mishuris, MD, chief medical information officer at Mass General Brigham, told Becker’s. “The respondents also reported a 20% absolute reduction in burnout.”
Dr. Mishuris noted that the tool’s impact goes beyond saving documentation time. It also reduces the mental burden of carrying unfinished notes across days — a factor strongly associated with burnout.
To broaden access, the health system made the tool available across the enterprise at the end of last year, positioning it as a clinician well-being solution without restricting it to specific provider types.
“One thing that’s been particularly powerful is the viral nature of this technology. When a physician sees a colleague next to them using it, they often ask, ‘Wait—what is that?'” Dr. Mishuris said. “That peer-to-peer exposure has really helped drive adoption in ways we don’t typically see with other healthcare technologies.”
Mass General Brigham is now piloting the tool’s use among residents and fellows, in collaboration with its graduate medical education office, to ensure the educational value of note-writing is maintained. Additional small-scale pilots are assessing usability among other clinical roles — including physical and occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, audiologists and nurses — recognizing that their documentation needs differ from those of physicians.
“We don’t need to prove that it [the ambient AI tool] helps with burnout anymore — we’ve proven that,” Dr. Mishuris said.
In June, the health system plans to launch another survey of current users to determine whether the reduction in burnout persists — not just over time, but also across a larger cohort.
“We’re hoping to gather more insight into the kind of provider this technology benefits most,” Dr. Mishuris said.
Looking ahead, Mass General Brigham is exploring further potential for the ambient documentation platform.
“Vendors are preparing features that will allow the tool to queue up orders — for example, if I mention during a visit that I want to change a patient’s medication, the system will draft that order in the EHR for me to review and sign, eliminating the need to manually enter it,” Dr. Mishuris said. “There’s also potential to support billing, coding and other use cases by leveraging the visit content.”
According to Dr. Mishuris, the next questions the health system aims to answer are: What other roles might benefit? And how can it be expanded effectively?
“What’s unique about this technology is how rapidly it evolves. If someone didn’t like the note output six months ago, they should look again,” she said. “The underlying large language model continues to change, and the customizations have improved significantly.”
She added that this evolution marks a departure from traditional healthcare technologies.
“Most tools require a major upgrade before you see meaningful improvements. Here, we’re seeing updates monthly,” she said. “It’s exciting, but it also means we need a different mindset when it comes to implementation — we’re scaling something that’s still actively innovating, rather than something static and well-established.”
