Special Startup Series: Making medical documentation easier with Voice AI

Overwork and fatigue remain a prevalent issue for those in the medical industry. In India, overwork as a result of the appalling 1700:1 patient to doctor ratio—in an environment that demands precision—can have devastating implications.

Providing a highly viable alternative, Augnito is India’s first advanced medical Voice AI solution powering the healthcare industry. Developed after eight years of R&D, Augnito is a ‘Made in India’ clinical speech recognition solution that is transforming workflow systems across the healthcare continuum.

Augnito- is an AI-based Medical transcription service with 99% Accuracy. It’s Co-designed by doctors and AI scientists. It is an innovative, secure, cloud-based clinical voice-AI solution that is bringing seamless speech enablement to the daily workflows. Using Augnito is four times faster than typing so doctors can save at least 1-2 hours per day helping over 1,00,000 Indian doctors to fight “Physician Burnout”

By combining human-centric design and cutting-edge technology, the overarching vision at Augnito is to help institutions establish a strong backbone for a centralized healthcare infrastructure—one that benefits both providers and patients.

Major benefits of Voice-AI

• Reduce Documentation Timelines

• Easy Integration & Execution

• Mitigate Burnout

• Reduced Errors & Claim Rejections

• Augmented Clinician Capabilities & Improved Patient Outcomes

Founders, Rustom Lawyer and Shiraz Austin, began developing Augnito as a cloud-based voice intelligence nine years ago (within their first company, Scribetech). The technology was, and continues to be, worked on by some of the brightest minds from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT), and Sheffield University.

Talking about the company’s initial journey, Rustom Lawyer, Co-Founder & CEO, Augnito said: “With over two decades of experience and having pioneered clinical documentation in the UK, with the NHS (National Health Service), my co-founder Shiraz Austin and I—knew just what it takes to transform a medical data management suite. Our first company Scribetech (2001) initiated and established clinical transcription services in the UK with esteemed institutions such as Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, University Hospital Birmingham, Kingston University Trust, as well as other medical institutions in England.”

“We began developing Augnito as a cloud-based voice intelligence, nine years ago. While the primary objective at the time was to improve our internal systems, it has now evolved to facilitate the democratization of the use of medical speech recognition software. The product has, and continues to be worked on, by some of the brightest minds from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT), and The University of Sheffield (UK),” Rustom added.

Plethora of product offerings

Spectra
A fast and easy speech-to-text solution that captures patient notes in seconds, increases productivity and improves patient care.

Voice Services
Advanced APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) & SDKs (Software Development Kit) (Software Development Kit) for a more efficient, voice-driven workflow.

Maya
A Voice AI (Artificial Intelligence) powered OPD (Outpatient Department) assistant for healthcare professionals.

Ambient
A work-in-progress Generative AI technology that will help doctors/healthcare providers document patient encounters and automate all the administrative tasks that EMR (Electronic Medical Records) entails.

Impact so far

In a short span of three years, Augnito has integrated its solutions in over 375 hospitals, across more than 25 countries (including the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, India, UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). Of these, there are 350+ Enterprise customers spread between India, the Middle East, and USA. Some of the world’s leading healthcare organizations like Apollo Hospitals, Medanta, Max Healthcare, PhysicianOne Urgent Care, Fortis Hospital, Narayana Health, Prime Healthcare Group, Paxera Health, Fujifilm, and Chartnote are part of Augnito’s current clientele.

Augnito offers Spectra, Voice Services, Maya and is continuing to develop more Voice AI solutions (like the application that leverages ambient technology, to be launched soon). Augnito now has several leading healthcare organizations in the UAE that have deployed its solutions, including PRIME Hospitals, Royal Bahrain Hospitals & Berlin Hospitals, Dubai. It has helped facilitate a 75% reduction in clinical documentation time, as using Augnito has proven to be 4 times faster than typing. The company’s solutions also ensure that healthcare providers save over three hours daily.

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“Over the next five years, we envision ourselves as market leaders in Medical Voice AI solutions in a few major geographies outside India.”

     Rustom Lawyer Co-Founder & CEO, Augnito

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In a recent case study with one of the Asia’s leading healthcare institutions, the deployment of Augnito’s proprietary Clinical Speech Recognition and Natural Language Understanding technology yielded significant clinical, operational, and financial impact. Some standout findings from the study were 100% of doctors surveyed agreed that operating their HIS (Hospital Information System) was substantially simplified with the use of Augnito. There was an 89.5% consensus on the improvement in quality of medical reports. 96.5% of doctors noted faster turnaround times—saving an average of 44 hours per month. There was a 46% increase in overall productivity, improved doctor satisfaction rates, as well as improved quality of consults and patient interactions. The Group realized a 11x return on their investment (ROI) within 6 months of Augnito roll out.

Lesser- known facts about Augnito:

1. Augnito’s Machine Learning & Natural Language Understanding models are coded with over 23,000 rules of medical transcription quality control.

2. Augnito’s services are deployed across more than 15 major geographies, with about 40% of revenue now generated from outside India.

3. Augnito caters to over 50 plus medical specialties and sub specialties, including Family Medicine, General Medicine, Oncology, Cardiology, General Surgery, Radiology & lots more.

Huge market potential

Augnito is an on-premises & cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions provider for both enterprise and retail clientele. Globally, Voice AI for Clinical Documentation is a $5 billion ARR market. A recent article from the World Economic Forum advocates AI in Healthcare as a trillion-dollar opportunity for India. We believe that the digitization of healthcare itself is a large part (multi-billion-dollar opportunity) being carved out from this revolution.

Rustom Lawyer believes that the AI revolution will be a holistic one — providing benefit to all stakeholders within the continuum of healthcare, whether they are providers, patients, or intermediaries/affiliates. “There is value to be added at every level, and we aim to be an integral player in the space,” he opines.

Way forward

Augnito has achieved a 5X year-on-year growth in its paid subscriber base and continues to grow at a 30% quarterly rate.

“At Augnito, we create healthcare’s most attentive and meticulous Voice AI solutions. We have and continue to transform two decades of clinical documentation knowledge into an AI accessible to every healthcare professional. Over the next five years, we envision ourselves as market leaders in Medical Voice AI solutions in a few major geographies outside India,” says Rustom Lawyer as he outlines his future priorities.

Founders of Augnito are working to democratize the use of Clinical Speech Recognition and Natural Language Understanding to such an extent that doctors across the world would have an AI assistant to augment their existing capabilities and expertise.

‘We will aspire to remain at the cutting-edge of technology innovation in the space, while maintaining and improving our commitment to human-centric design,” Rustom signs off.

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*The story was first published in the July 2023 issue of BioVoice eMagazine.