The ambient artificial intelligence medical scribe market has become crowded, with numerous players jostling for share.
Health tech company Doximity has now jumped in to go head-to-head with AI startups.
Doximity, an online platform for medical professionals, rolled out a new AI medical scribe that is available free of charge to all verified U.S. physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and medical students with a verified Doximity account.
Doximity Scribe has been in beta testing for more than a year, the company said in a blog post. More than 10,000 Doximity members have used the beta version, creating millions of clinical notes, to help build the tool, according to the company.
The company is also offering free onboarding assistance, along with the AI-powered clinical documentation tool, to all free and charitable medical clinics across the U.S. Medical clinics that provide care to underserved communities often lack the resources and budgets to adopt new technology. Doximity also offers these same clinics free access to its Dialer Pro telemedicine services.
AI medical scribes can be pricey for healthcare organizations. Comparable scribe services can cost hundreds of dollars per month per user, totaling thousands of dollars per user annually.
According to Doximity, the scribe tool is highly portable, available on both desktop and mobile, supporting in-person and virtual care. "You can document from the clinic, hospital, or home—no extra software or setup required," the company said in the blog post. It can also be customized to a doctor's preference with structured templates or free-form notes.
Scribe is currently in beta integration with Doximity Dialer, the company's voice and video telehealth platform. The note-taking experience is embedded directly into the Dialer interface so doctors can conduct virtual visits and document care from a single, unified screen, according to the company.
"This functionality has the potential to be especially useful for physicians and free clinics that rely on virtual care to reach patients across various locations," Doximity said in the blog post.
Doximity's scribe tool is HIPAA-compliant, and all Doximity users are covered by a business associate agreement. "We do not store or retain any audio. Recordings are processed securely in real time and immediately discarded once the note is generated," the company said, and notes are private to each user.
The company has a sizable reach into the medical community, which could give it a distinct advantage in the scribe market along with its free cost. Doximity's network members include more than 80% of U.S. physicians across all specialties and practice areas.
Doximity provides software tools for doctors and clinicians and its clinical workflow tools saw record use in the most recent quarter, ending March 30, with more than 620,000 unique active prescribers, Jeff Tangney, co-founder and CEO of Doximity, said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call in May.
Its workflow tools include telehealth, fax, scheduling and AI tools. The company has been ramping up its investment in AI.
"Our AI tools grew the fastest, again, last quarter, up more than 5x year-on-year. In short, as the practice of medicine grows both more mobile and more AI-powered, we're proud to be leading the way," he told investors and analysts.
"In a short couple of years, we've seen AI tools like this truly change the mood in medicine from AI leery to AI cheery," Tangney said. "For the first time in over a decade, there's genuine hope that physician burnout and information overload can actually be eased with technology."
The company's paying customers include pharmaceutical manufacturers, health systems and medical recruiting firms that use its platform to market their products and services.
As the AI scribe market rapidly grows, ambient documentation is becoming a standard feature in the clinical setting. Players in this space include Microsoft's DAX, Abridge, Suki, Nabla and Ambience, just to new a few.
Many industry watchers are expecting consolidation in the market as health systems and large provider groups contract with different vendors. AI companies are also adding more features and capabilities to increase the value of their tools beyond just ambient note-taking.