Nabla Expands Partnership with FQHC Neighborhood Healthcare, Rolling Out Ambient AI Assistant to All Clinicians

What You Should Know: 

– Nabla, an ambient AI assistant for clinicians, today announced an expanded partnership with Neighborhood Healthcare, a prominent Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) serving nearly 100,000 patients annually across California’s San Diego and Riverside counties. 

– Following a highly successful four-month pilot program, Nabla’s AI assistant is now being implemented live across all 220 clinicians within the organization, aiming to alleviate administrative burdens and enhance patient care delivery.

Tackling Documentation Burden and Clinician Burnout in Community Health

Neighborhood Healthcare, similar to many FQHCs nationwide, confronts the daily challenge of providing high-quality care within the constraints of limited resources. Clinicians are frequently stretched thin, managing increasing patient needs alongside significant administrative demands. A major pain point is the time consumed by documenting care in electronic health records (EHRs). 

Studies have highlighted that for every hour spent directly with patients, clinicians often dedicate nearly two additional hours to administrative tasks, much of it occurring after clinic hours. This excessive EHR time, both during and after visits, can detract from meaningful patient interactions, reduce eye contact, contribute to clinician burnout, and potentially weaken the vital patient-provider relationship – a particular concern for patients facing barriers to care who rely on FQHCs for consistent, compassionate treatment.

Nabla’s Ambient AI Offers Seamless Documentation Relief

To address these critical issues, Neighborhood Healthcare turned to Nabla’s ambient AI assistant. With explicit patient consent, the technology securely listens to clinical visits and automatically generates structured clinical notes. These notes integrate seamlessly with Neighborhood Healthcare’s existing EHR system, eClinicalWorks, offering clinicians a smarter, lighter method for handling documentation without slowing down the pace of care or requiring excessive focus on screens during patient encounters.

Pilot Program Yields Significant Time Savings and High Accuracy

The results from the four-month pilot program were compelling. Clinicians reported frequently completing their clinical notes before the patient visit even ended and noted a significant reduction in time spent working in the EHR after hours, with some expressing relief at getting their nights and weekends back. A total of 34,000 notes were generated by the system during and after the pilot phase. User satisfaction proved high: 76% of the AI-generated notes received a rating of 4 out of 5 or higher from the providers who reviewed them, with the overall average note rating reaching 4.3. The AI’s accuracy and consistency were further validated by the finding that only 2% of notes required any editing by the clinician.

Empowering Medical Assistants to Optimize Team Care

Looking ahead, Neighborhood Healthcare plans to further integrate Nabla into its clinical workflows by exploring expanded roles for Medical Assistants. The organization is investigating how MAs can leverage the AI assistant to support tasks such as drafting discharge summaries, initiating lab and referral orders, and managing follow-up documentation. This focus on empowering MAs is crucial in safety-net settings, where these essential frontline team members are vital to operational flow but often face significant workload pressures.