Heidi Uses AI to Shift Health Care to an Abundance Mentality

Heidi was around for years before LLMs and modern generative AI were developed. According to Chief Medical Officer Simon Kos, Heidi is the world’s most used scribe, appearing in 190 countries and 110 languages. Their basic ambient scribe is free of cost, supporting remote and poorly served areas. With generative AI, Heidi now offers an “AI care partner” that automates “the whole clinical workflow journey”: injecting context from patient documents before the consultation, infusing evidence that’s traceable to high-quality clinical literature as well as local guidelines, filling out the note, doing coding and billing, and even making follow-up calls to patients afterward.

Kos says we have adapted health care to scarcity: the whole sequence of seeing a PCP, then a specialist, then a hospital stay, and especially lacking follow-through after the patient goes home. Their goal is “to double the world’s health care capacity” and provide more equity to vulnerable populations whose access is limited by cost, distance, or language. In short, move from a “scarcity mentality” to an “abundance mentality.”

In our recent interview, Kos explains how everything in Heidi works together. Heidi Comms takes calls and allows patients to do scheduling and other tasks without burdening a receptionist. Heidi Evidence provides context-sensitive support both to Heidi Comms and to the clinician during the interview, where Heidi’s scribe provides high-quality evidence through an LLM that’s refined with retrieval augmented generation (RAG).

Heidi even keeps track of follow-up tasks, further reducing the clinician’s cognitive burden so they can focus on using their judgment with the patient. Heidi places follow-up calls to ensure that patients got their medication and are tolerating it. Again, the context allows the AI bot to ask the right questions.

The interview also briefly describes the acquisition of Automedica, a clinical AI company.

Kos calls this period in health IT the time when promises are being realized. We don’t need “another app, another task” to provide help in a fragmented fashion.

An example of Heidi’s power comes from its extensive language support. Many physicians work in other countries, where they may have to conduct interviews and write notes in English but prefer to write in their native language. With Heidi, they dictate their ideas in their preferred language, and Heidi produces an accurate English-language note.

Kos emphasizes that Heidi is there to support the clinician, who exercises judgment in the interview. In the future, tools such as Heidi might do more and more decision-making, where the human clinician still performs the highest level of care, but with more and more support.

Enjoy watching our interview with Simon Kos from Heidi to learn more.

Learn more about Heidi: https://www.heidihealth.com/

Listen and subscribe to the Healthcare IT Today Interviews Podcast to hear all the latest insights from experts in healthcare IT.

And for an exclusive look at our top stories, subscribe to our newsletter and YouTube.

Tell us what you think. Contact us here or on Twitter at @hcitoday. And if you’re interested in advertising with us, check out our various advertising packages and request our Media Kit.

Heidi Health is a proud sponsor of Healthcare Scene.

Heidi was around for years before LLMs and modern generative AI were developed. According to Chief Medical Officer Simon Kos, Heidi is the world’s most used scribe, appearing in 190 countries and 110 languages. Their basic ambient scribe is free of cost, supporting remote and poorly served areas. With generative AI, Heidi now offers an “AI care partner” that automates “the whole clinical workflow journey”: injecting context from patient documents before the consultation, infusing evidence that’s traceable to high-quality clinical literature as well as local guidelines, filling out the note, doing coding and billing, and even making follow-up calls to patients afterward.

Kos says we have adapted health care to scarcity: the whole sequence of seeing a PCP, then a specialist, then a hospital stay, and especially lacking follow-through after the patient goes home. Their goal is “to double the world’s health care capacity” and provide more equity to vulnerable populations whose access is limited by cost, distance, or language. In short, move from a “scarcity mentality” to an “abundance mentality.”

In our recent interview, Kos explains how everything in Heidi works together. Heidi Comms takes calls and allows patients to do scheduling and other tasks without burdening a receptionist. Heidi Evidence provides context-sensitive support both to Heidi Comms and to the clinician during the interview, where Heidi’s scribe provides high-quality evidence through an LLM that’s refined with retrieval augmented generation (RAG).

Heidi even keeps track of follow-up tasks, further reducing the clinician’s cognitive burden so they can focus on using their judgment with the patient. Heidi places follow-up calls to ensure that patients got their medication and are tolerating it. Again, the context allows the AI bot to ask the right questions.

The interview also briefly describes the acquisition of Automedica, a clinical AI company.

Kos calls this period in health IT the time when promises are being realized. We don’t need “another app, another task” to provide help in a fragmented fashion.

An example of Heidi’s power comes from its extensive language support. Many physicians work in other countries, where they may have to conduct interviews and write notes in English but prefer to write in their native language. With Heidi, they dictate their ideas in their preferred language, and Heidi produces an accurate English-language note.

Kos emphasizes that Heidi is there to support the clinician, who exercises judgment in the interview. In the future, tools such as Heidi might do more and more decision-making, where the human clinician still performs the highest level of care, but with more and more support.

Enjoy watching our interview with Simon Kos from Heidi to learn more.

Learn more about Heidi: https://www.heidihealth.com/

Listen and subscribe to the Healthcare IT Today Interviews Podcast to hear all the latest insights from experts in healthcare IT.

And for an exclusive look at our top stories, subscribe to our newsletter and YouTube.

Tell us what you think. Contact us here or on Twitter at @hcitoday. And if you’re interested in advertising with us, check out our various advertising packages and request our Media Kit.

Heidi Health is a proud sponsor of Healthcare Scene.