Clinicians at Cambridge, Mass.-based Beth Israel Lahey Health who used Heidi’s ambient AI scribe most heavily spent about 2.5 fewer minutes per encounter with notes open in the EHR after enrolling, according to a quality improvement study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Researchers from the 14-hospital system and Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center analyzed more than 1.6 million outpatient encounters involving 902 clinicians enrolled in Heidi, using data from July 2024 through January 2026.
Across all enrolled clinicians, enrollment was associated with an immediate 1.2-minute drop in note-active time per encounter. High users, who used Heidi in 55% of encounters during their first three months, saw the largest reduction. Low users, who used it in 3% of encounters, and the 297 enrolled clinicians who never used it saw minimal change.
The time savings did not translate into other gains. Enrollment was associated with only a slight uptick in same-day note closure and no significant change in after-hours note closures or work relative value units. High users’ notes also grew longer, and those clinicians closed notes after hours more often than enrolled nonusers.
BILH deployed Heidi as a standalone platform, not integrated with its EHR, and let clinicians opt in voluntarily. The authors estimated that a high user seeing 10 patients per clinic session would save about 25 minutes. The study did not capture time spent editing notes inside Heidi or assess note accuracy.
In an accompanying editorial, Kirsten Ostherr, PhD, of Rice University’s Medical Humanities Research Institute in Houston, questioned whether ambient scribes “relocate documentation burden rather than reduce it.” Dr. Ostherr also noted that ambient scribes are classified as low-risk devices that don’t require FDA review.
One co-author is affiliated with Heidi Health, though the paper states the company had no role in data analysis or the decision to submit the paper for publication. Heidi became available to all interested BILH clinicians in October 2025.
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