PITTSBURGH– Abridge, the leader in AI-powered medical documentation, today announced the appointment of Zachary Lipton as Chief Scientific Officer. Lipton brings with him a wealth of experience through his role as Assistant Professor of Machine Learning at Carnegie Mellon University and his experience as a research scientist at Amazon AI. His research expertise spans core machine learning methods, with notable contributions in deep learning, natural language processing, and the development of robust and adaptive machine learning algorithms. He has also played a leadership role in the emergence of the study of fairness, accountability and transparency and focused his applied work squarely on problems in clinical medicine.
“Since meeting Zack five years ago, I have always been deeply impressed by his AI research, which pioneered the applications of many modern machine learning techniques to healthcare data,” said Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and co-founder of Abridge. “He has been a long-time advisor and academic collaborator in our work addressing clinical conversations, and I am thrilled to welcome him as our first Chief Scientific Officer at a time when generative AI has the power to drastically improve the provider-patient experience.”
In this role, Lipton will lead the scientific research and machine learning efforts for Abridge. Among his many responsibilities, Lipton will bolster the company’s team of world class researchers and integrate closely with product and design teams to identify groundbreaking applications of machine learning applications that improve the lives of patients and providers. This includes bringing his vital depth of experience building trust and avoiding the pitfalls of bias in AI models. Lipton will report directly to CEO and co-founder Dr. Shiv Rao.
“Now is the most exciting time to be in AI, which is undoubtedly having a moment on a global scale through real-life applications like ChatGPT,” said Lipton. “While ChatGPT has recently garnered a new level of mainstream attention, generative NLP technology has long driven everyday technologies, like modern machine translation systems, and has been used by hospitals for years thanks to innovators like Abridge. After years of working with this team on an advisory level, I’m honored to join the company as it sits on the cusp of a breakthrough moment in shaping how health systems will leverage AI to improve healthcare outcomes and experiences.”
Abridge’s generative AI works behind-the-scenes of medical conversations to quickly capture the most important parts of a medical visit, enabling providers to fully focus on their patients, without having to raise a pen. This enables health systems to reduce provider burnout while also increasing patient satisfaction. Armed with a proprietary dataset derived from more than 1.5 million medical encounters and years of experience with “foundation” machine learning models, Abridge has peer-reviewed papers about medical conversation AI than any other entity. Abridge has already helped more than 2,000 clinicians practice at the top of their license and 200,000 patients stay on top of their health. The company currently has partnerships and pilots with several prominent health systems, including each of a top three hospital, payer, and pharmacy as well as a Fortune 5 healthcare company.
