Hi, everyone. This is Lucas Voss with Becker's
Healthcare. Thanks so much for tuning in to
the Becker's Healthcare podcast series. It's fantastic
to have you. Today, we're talking about why
Ambient AI took off in 2025,
as we all know, and what's next
in 2026
and beyond. And joining me for today's discussion,
I'm so excited to have him, is doctor
Thomas Kelly, CEO and cofounder of Heidi. Doctor
Kelly, thanks so much for taking some time
and being here today. It's great to have
you.
Oh, it is. Yeah. No worries. Excited to
chat more. For those that might not know
you yet, I do wanna kick us off
with introductions here. If you just wanna give
us a brief overview of, yourself and certainly
your work in health care.
Yeah. So I'm Tom. I'm a doctor by
background.
Australian born, if you can't tell from the
accent.
Founded Heidi after being a vascular surgery resident
in 2021.
Had a view that every doctor should practice
with some sort of sort of AI partner
in their care. I had sci fi visions
of, like, you know, maybe kinda everything, like
prescribing, ordering investigations for me, reviewing my results,
doing my notes, basically freeing me from my
medical record and letting me see more patients,
particularly for me, operate more because that's what
I love doing. And, yeah, I'm proud to
lead,
probably one of, like, the largest health care
companies in the world. So we we're a
global company,
around more than 50% of doctors in across
Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK use Heidi every
week. And then in The US, we have
an amazing growing business.
I'd say where we're most prominent is in
outpatient specialties, so across, like, urology,
like, GI Alliance,
US Urology,
a a bunch of other amazing partners, and
then, a few large health systems and growing,
every year. So like Beth Israel, Franciscan,
Maine General,
Well, it's great to have you, and I
feel like, again, your sci fi vision that
you just mentioned sort of became true in
2025
for a lot of folks, for a lot
of providers in itself.
It's moved incredibly fast. It's going to move
incredibly fast in 2026
and certainly beyond.
From your perspective and your work in the
space,
what's driving that pace right now, and what
makes ambient
AI fundamentally
different
sort of from what we've seen in earlier
health care health care tech waves?
Yeah. I think overwhelmingly,
what I'm seeing is
that, you know, and it's like in every
industry, not just health care. So the boards
and CEOs are asking their teams, like, what
are we doing about AI? Like, I'm here
I'm using it. It's amazing. Like, it's it's
saving me time. Like, what what's your AI
strategy?
And almost always,
what I've seen is that the especially in
larger organizations, the CIOs,
I love them, but they don't have a
lot of taste. So they just end up
picking whatever is the most integrated option in
their stack, and then they go back to
their board and they say, hey. Look. We
we're doing AI now, and we've chosen chosen
an Ambient tool.
And specifically with Ambient, the reason I think
it's gone so fast is it's one of
the few things that doctors actually love. So
usually usually software implementation
is like a doctor's worst nightmare, like sitting
in classes with someone teaching them how to
click click different places in the medical record.
It's not not why I did the went
into the job.
And,
basically, I think that that downwards pressure met
doctors wanting this tool, and so the CIOs
generally picked whichever scribe work best with that
medical record. I think this year and probably
next year is gonna be where the rubber
meets the road on ROI. Like, how many
of our my doctors are actually using this?
Like,
are there better tools? Like, how should I
actually deeply think about, like, what AI means
for the organization, especially as
the capabilities
grow?
I think
back to my sci fi vision, I think
it'll become more and more about, like, an
AI partner that actually participates in care. Like,
we're already seeing in Utah, like, the Doctronic
trial where where an AI is starting to
basically, like,
almost fully autonomously prescribe with some doctor sign
off. And so I think the health systems,
like, that's how I would conceptually try to
plan how I work with AI. Like, where
are the areas in the health system that
are
most costly or or hardest to staff or
have the longest wait lists,
and spend time with with companies like ours
to try to figure out, okay, like you
know, because we already have it. Like, my
cardi can read the record, can look up
evidence, can call patients, can so it's like
there's so many things you can do. It
just depends on what your objectives are.
And, yeah, it'll be interesting to see. Like,
I do think that
your play scribing on its own
will struggle to find durable value because it's
it's getting easier and easier
to generate amazing notes. It used to be
a really hard problem. Like, I spent two
years of my life trying to make this
work.
Mhmm. But now if you if you just
pick up an amazing
foundation model,
you know, you get most of the way
there.
So it's gotta be about the depth of
the product, I think, and how much providers
love it.
So one of the things that was happening
in 2025
specifically was the fact that a lot of
organizations were moving sort of from the pilot
phase into
adoption, into trying to get this at to
at scale, essentially.
Yeah. What's what's needed from leaders to make
that happen? What are the conversations that need
to happen to be able to say, okay.
We're moving from a pilot project that was
sort of a nice to have to then
now, okay. We're using this daily, weekly, as
you mentioned with some of the organizations
that you work with.
Yeah. I think we you definitely have to
spend the time to nail it in in
initial kind of so we we do, like,
a stage rollout,
where you have
an initial alpha group, which is friend like,
friendlies, so people in each of the departments.
I think the key is not to cherry
pick specialties. You have to have absolutely every
everyone represented that you want to ultimately use
the tool.
Then in that phase,
doing, like, real kind of AI enablement,
setup for each of those specialists. So we
do that with our CS and implementation team.
So that's where we go to hematology and
we say, oh, okay. For hematology,
the visit
contains very little,
useful information. Actually, the value of Heidi would
be if we
look at all of the historical blood results
and summarize them in the note. Like, that's
a valuable thing. And then so then we
set up materials and templates that teach hematologists
how to use HYDIA in that way. So
you can use the context tab and select
the past sessions and then use this template,
and it will summarize all the blood results
just the way you like. And I think,
to be honest, I think that's where we
stand out. So if if you're working with
a partner, it's like, oh, incredibly easy to
roll out. Like, time to value is four
weeks. You just turn it on, and everyone's
gonna be using it. I feel like it's
a red flag. Like, it's it's likely
that they're just gonna be rolling out, like,
the same template and, like, limited personalization
for every single specialty,
which means that when you hit a, I
don't know, a plastic surgeon,
like, the SOAP note isn't is not really
that useful to them. So if you're just
trying to drive them to use, like, a
baked in, SOAP note generator that does a
good problems list and captures better,
problems from the record in order to generate
more revenue, They're probably just not gonna use
it because they hate the notes, and they
they don't actually get it it doesn't write
like them. It doesn't contain it's like more
note bloat. Like, it's it's a lot of,
like, random stuff, like random issues and problems
that they they're not actually managing
just because that helps with, like, the RCM
down the track. It's like, I'm just dealing
with this right hand fracture. Like, get out
of my hair.
So I think I think it depends on
every from our perspective, every specialty is actually
quite different. Need to treat them differently.
That's how you get so we we generally
see, like, 80% activation
from from sign up. So if someone
if if you promote it internally, you set
it free. If someone signs up, roughly four
out of five will use it,
every week, and something like 70% of them
will use it every day.
And the the thing that's hard is, I
think,
in the the PR and the marketing, it's
sometimes hard to trust because if I talk
to the systems and they're like, oh, yeah.
It's only in primary care, but then they'll
then they'll promote it as if it's, like,
80% adoption in every every market. Yeah. Primary
care, easy. Like, they they see everything.
They do high, turnover medicine.
This standard soap note is amazing for them.
But if you think about, like, all the
specialties,
all of the different use cases, you have
to have some ability to personalize, generate templates
that
live outside of the medical record. They still
use data from the medical record, but there
are many things that providers do that
just require, like, a more flexible AI tool.
So that's usually where we sit in. So
if if a system is is churning off
another tool or they haven't picked one yet
and they have a lot of specialty practice
or they they've tried
the, you know, single template best at RCM
tool and they haven't actually seen much,
much adoption or much uplift, then then, yeah,
I think we're a good option.
Yeah.
I wanna come back to the adoption piece
and the and the usability part of it,
which you've mentioned is is really crucial. Right?
It needs to have that aspect to it
for for it to work on a on
a scale basis.
For you personally, what does usable mean in
day to day practice? And then certainly, we've
talked about the workflow piece of this.
How should leaders think about workflow fit versus
then also the EHR integration
when they're looking at evaluating
ambient AI?
Yeah. Yeah. I think for me so having
been a doctor,
the main thing we time we save is
when
the amount of time
writing notes. So, basically, like, keyboard strokes,
how many times do I have to edit
change,
how much of what the system writes am
I actually accepting,
and, of course, like, how often am I
using it? Like, is it am I only
cherry picking it for certain visits? Am I
using it for every visit?
And
we we measure that on, like, what's our
daily active usage? Like, what percentage of sessions
are we capturing? And and we should be
in most visits unless there's, you know, patient
who hasn't consented or it's a really tricky
tricky circumstance.
So
so for us, that has always meant that
we don't really bend the knee and, like,
put Heidi so integrated into the medical record
that it is, like, unusably
rigid. So, like,
without naming names, I would say most of
the options that are very, very, very tightly
integrated with the record, like the default options,
the product teams of those products, they live
and die by the medical record. So they
wake up in the morning and they think,
if this tool is doing its job, it
just fills the fields in front of the
doctor. Like, that's how they view the world.
Now don't get me wrong. That is valuable
for sure. But I view the world more
in the, like, consumer AI lens like Claude
or Chativity or, actually, I think I view,
like, some of the more direct to doctor
competitors as as real competitors for us. So
it's like, okay.
Ignoring, like, the, CDI and the RCM
flow that happens and all the reasons we
have our medic record, in ten years,
is a doctor actually gonna be sitting on
a screen that has all these fields that
require to be filled? Like, definitely not. I
have failed if that is still the case.
So my take is that that you have
to build, like, a different UI. Like, for
someone who hasn't hasn't,
done engineering, there's this application called Cursor,
which is what a lot of like, almost
I don't know. Most engineers are now using
this tool. And, basically, it's like a single
chat field, and you can turn on voice.
And you you speak to the system, you
type what you want it to do, and
it's fully abstracting away
something like five to 10 different pieces of
software for you. And they all look like
databases. Like, they all look like the medical
record. They have all these different things that
you would have historically had to tick and
click and write in this file and write
another file and then so it's a very
similar idea. And so Heidi is the same.
Like, usability means that we build AI first.
Like, what what not just MD and AI,
but, like, what are all the things that
will become possible with this tool? Yes. We
have to integrate very deeply. Like, we have
to be able to order. We have to
be able to do problems list. We have
to be able to write notes that generate
more revenue, capture issues that we would have
otherwise missed,
all things we do. But but, fundamentally, like,
we will not sacrifice making Heidi, like, some,
like, ribbon
inside of the medical record that does AI.
Like, that's just not how it's gonna happen.
It's gonna be a full screen
experience that is, like, built for AI, that's
fast,
that does, like, agent calls really nicely, that
shows you the thinking, that does, like, sourcing,
that it's all, like, one thing, and that's
the kind of, like, superintelligence
AI care partner that I imagine every doctor
brings to work.
And so when when evaluating I know this
sounds like evangelical and, you know, I'm I'm,
I'm pitching on where it goes. I do
think it matters. So the the things I
would watch out for is if it's incredibly
integrated in the medical record, then you should
just buy the one in the medical record.
Like, that's gonna exist,
you know, whether it's Epic's or not, whoever.
Like, they're gonna do that the best. I
don't really think the companies whose value prop
is there more integrated with Epic than Epic
Zone AI Scribe are gonna be durable, really,
unless they do other things.
If that's failed, so if you tried that
or or your doctors say, I don't really
like like this approach. Like, I wanna be
able to ask AI question. I wanna be
able to look something up. I wanna be
able to summarize my week. I wanna be
able to,
ask about the last three sessions and then,
like, change the template because of this patient
the last three times I spoke about the
diabetes, but I don't want to summarize the
whole year. Like, usability is about, like, I
am an AI serving my doctor.
And, yes, I ultimately send data back to
the record, but I have a flexible interface
that I can let the doctor do what
they want and then ultimately send it back.
So does that make sense? I don't know.
I'm rambling a bit, but I think that's
the that's the gist. That's your sci fi
that's your sci fi vision. I think it
does make sense. It's very important. It it
creates that flexibility for users. It's not a
rigid experience. It it it's it's tailored, and
that's as you mentioned, I think that's the
way it's it's going to go in the
next ten years. It's not going to be
rigid fields, as you've mentioned, that are going
to be be filled out. It's a it's
a flexible flexible process that needs to happen.
Yeah. One interesting thing that you've mentioned, and
I think this is very important, is
that oftentimes
these early wins, everything works, everything is great,
can actually be a red flag for organizations
in terms of, oh, this is everything's working.
We have the early results. Yeah. We've seen
we've seen, you know,
after hours EHR time is is reduced, all
of a sudden improved documentation, completeness, etcetera. It's
all there. Right?
When you're looking at results like these and
sort of these when you think about the
red flag, right,
what should health care leaders ask right now
to separate that, you know, early win sort
of from repeatable
durable impact for the next year?
Yeah. I would ask so
how many of the doctors across all specialties
are using this tool, and how many of
them like, what's what are the what's the
actual denominator of the activation number? Like, is
it everyone who's signed in, which I think
is, like, the right because I, you know,
I can only do so much to get
someone to to actually sign up to the
tool. But once they sign up, then then,
yeah, like, if I'm activating most of the
users, I've succeeded. So you'd wanna know that
it's working across all specialties.
You know, what's the,
there's, like, UX, which is just, like, what's
the user experience?
Do they find it easy to use? Do
they find it valuable? Would they be frustrated
if if,
it's taken away?
You can look at objective measures.
It's it's shocking to me seeing some of
the studies that are coming out about, like,
how little some some products are actually impacting
both, like, revenue, time, and record.
And they universally, doctors love it because they
don't have to type as much, but, actually,
that's not saving them as maybe it's not
generating as much ROI as as maybe people
thought months thought it would. The reason it's
shocking for me is because I've only seen
the studies that I've seen, and, again, they're,
like, in that bucket of, like, very integrated
world. And I think it makes sense because
you still have to review every field. You
have to, like, click all the drop downs.
Like, you're stuck in the record. So you
can only get so much of a speed
up. Whereas in our,
randomized,
papers, like, in across the world, we see,
like, overwhelmingly
in improved, like, RBUs and time in record
goes down massively. So that I think that's
the story for 2026, 2027. That's it's up
to me to tell it. But, basically, people
who think that
AI that is gonna change health care in
the medical record is, like, a bad take,
it's going to be that the records are
gonna get increasingly
almost, like, subjugated to the back and definitely
used by admin and revenue,
definitely exists. Like, they will always be there.
Like, we will be great partners, but it's
about this, like, AI layer that sits on
top that partners with the doctor to mean
that they do not need to use the
record. Like, that is success.
Success is I do not ever sit on
a computer. Like, that's what a doctor wants.
So you can't build that if you're you
are the record. Like, that is like it's
like you're you're trying to get rid of
yourself. So I think I think that's why,
like, companies like HYD will will exist is,
like, to try to
to actually, like, strengthen the record, like, put
more data into it. Like, actually, like, increase
its value to the org, but then to
the doctors,
breathe in to actually just practice and, like,
get the satisfaction.
So so, basically, I would say, look at
those those objective metrics
and then question, like, is there a good
ROI case here? Like, am I getting the
value out of the tool that maybe all
the contracts maybe that I've committed to? And
then just, yeah, raise raise your ambition and
expectation for your partners and look at what's
out there. Because I'd say for most cases,
Heidi wouldn't have been one that they considered
when their CEO said, hey. Choose an AI
tool. At least in The US, everywhere else,
yes, but in in The US, no, because
we were just starting. And I think
we have acquired a different perspective. So if
you've had a bad time
with a vendor,
chances are you will have a bad time
with the next vendor if the next one
you choose is essentially the same thing. Like,
we work super well with Epic. It's like
that's not you already chose the one that
works super well with Epic. Like, why is
that gonna be any different? So I I
think that's the way to think of it.
Like,
if if you're having success with the current
version, then that's great. Like, I'm I'm happy.
I just want doctors to have have good
lives and and see more patients. So,
yeah, I think just what is it? Always,
like, measure
think think about the metrics that matter to
you and then talk to other partners and
see see if there's a a better option
out there.
Be a little adventurous and buy into doctor
Kelly's sci fi vision. I think that's the
way to go. Yeah. Yeah. Doctor Kelly, thank
you so much for your time. It's so
fantastic to have you. It's a it's a
great great conversation. Thank you.
Thanks, Lucas. Appreciate it. And we also want
to thank our podcast sponsor, Heidi. You can
tune in to more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare
by visiting our podcast page at beggershospitalreview.com.