WILMINGTON, Del., July 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Orchid, the first and only AI-powered EHR for mental health, announced today the public launch of Orchid AI, its HIPAA-compliant AI-powered clinical notes solution, which helps mental health clinicians automate clinical note-taking and reduce other administrative burdens so they can spend more time on patient care. Orchid AI integrates with its own EHR natively, and with any other EHR via a simple-to-use Chrome extension.
"EHRs for mental health professionals haven’t progressed much for decades," said Orchid CEO and founder Joseph Pomianowski. "Often built on antiquated technology, they tend to be inflexible, clunky, and incompatible with newer technology like AI. Orchid created an EHR for clinicians that’s simple, contemporary, and intuitive–one that can easily integrate with other tools clinicians use every day. The addition of our AI-powered clinical notes solution is a significant advancement and advantage for clinicians.”
There is a recognized shortage of mental health clinicians, a shortage that was exacerbated by the pandemic. The wait for care in some areas can be months or even years long. Most clinicians–at least 70 percent of whom are in independent practice–need to set aside a full day a week to work on administrative tasks, limiting their capacity to see patients.
Clinical notes are one of the primary administrative tasks for clinicians. A critical part of mental health care, clinical notes enable clinicians to track and review a patient’s clinical history over time. In session, clinicians need to balance the need for accurate note taking with being fully present while speaking with patients. While some clinicians may already have good processes for doing this, many others do not. Exacerbating the problem, many insurance plans carry their own unique requirements for clinicians to follow–processes that many find so burdensome that they opt not to accept insurance at all. This task of writing clinical notes and meeting requisite insurance requirements is often seen as a burden and thus erects more barriers to care.
With Orchid, clinicians can automate much of the clinical note writing process, by recording patient sessions (with patient permission), or if the clinician or patient declines to be recorded, by dictating or typing high-level notes and letting Orchid do the rest. Clinicians can use Orchid’s existing note templates, from SOAP to DAP notes, or use their own template which Orchid can then follow. With the clinician’s permission, Orchid’s AI can train itself on the clinician’s style and can use past clinical notes to draft new ones for precise continuity of care. Additionally, Orchid can summarize medical histories, suggest billing codes and diagnoses, and provide after-visit summaries to increase patient retention. It's compliant with insurance company requirements, making it simpler for clinicians to accept insurance. Thousands of clinicians are already using Orchid’s EHR.
Dr. David Halpern, a board-certified psychiatrist practicing in Pennsylvania and who has been using Orchid’s EHR for over a year, said, “Orchid has helped streamline the running of my practice so that I can focus on patients, and the addition of Orchid AI is fantastic - I now spend far less time on note taking than before. Orchid understands the pressures of mental health professionals and is continually adding features and integrations that make my work life infinitely easier.”
"Orchid's customers report that because Orchid AI can now draft clinical notes for them, it reduces clinical note writing from up to 20 minutes down to a few seconds per session," said Ada Peng, Spatial Data Analyst at Orchid and the architect of Orchid AI. “Orchid also greatly reduces administrative time for intake sessions, as it can pull information from intake forms to streamline note taking.”
Orchid also offers a full EHR for mental health clinicians. Subscriptions start at $9.99 per month.
"Our goal is to eliminate barriers to obtaining mental healthcare," said Pomianowski. "In the future, we'll expand our focus to adjacent healthcare specialties."
Orchid participated in Y Combinator's Winter 23 batch and raised $1.5M from Y Combinator and strategic investors. Orchid has been growing its clinician customer base by 20 percent month-over-month for the past year.
About Orchid
Orchid is a Y Combinator-backed healthcare company that offers the first and only AI-powered EHR for mental health, helping to automate note taking and reducing other administrative burdens so clinicians can spend more time on patient care. Many independent clinicians spend up to 25 percent of their time on administrative work – by removing much of that, Orchid enables clinicians to see more patients, and can relieve the current shortage of clinicians, reduce clinician burnout, and help more people gain access to care. Clinicians can use Orchid’s full EHR for managing their practice and patients or leverage just the AI-powered progress note feature on top of their legacy EHR, to alleviate their primary administrative burden. Thousands of clinicians are already using Orchid – start a free trial at orchid.health.
Media contact:
Michelle Faulkner
Big Swing
617-510-6998
michelle@big-swing.com
