Abridge vs Heidi (2026)

Abridge is embedded across Epic Haiku, Canto, Hyperdrive and the ASAP emergency module as the first partner in Epic's Partners and Pals and Workshop programs, with bidirectional note sync and write back into the chart. It also has an athenahealth partnership, and Availity's FHIR native payer APIs are embedded for prior authorization.

Sourceabridge.com/press-release/abridge-inside-emoryread 2026-09-29

Heidi writes back to the chart through named EHR integrations. In Epic it offers structured writeback and clinical task automation across Hyperspace, Hyperdrive and Haiku, in Oracle Cerner it writes back to MPage components in PowerChart and FirstNet, and with athenahealth it syncs schedules and pushes to chart. Altera, AlayaCare, eClinicalWorks, Veradigm and others are also named, along with Availity eligibility checks and Google and Microsoft 365 tools. Full EHR access sits on the Practice plan.

Sourceheidihealth.com/en-us/integrationsread 2026-09-28

Fixed function pipelines chain capture, note generation, structured orders, coding context for revenue cycle, and prior authorization with payer determination during the visit. Abridge sets that sequence, and customers do not configure it or combine several agents into a workflow of their own.

Sourceabridge.com/press-release/abridge-availity-collaboration-announcementread 2026-09-29

Scribe, Evidence and the Comms agents are separate products, each running its own fixed flow. Agent and Routine automation come under a monthly usage allocation, but Heidi does not say how routines are built or chained.

Sourceheidihealth.com/pricingread 2026-09-28

Ambient capture is started by the clinician across iOS, Android and Epic desktop and mobile surfaces in outpatient, inpatient and emergency settings, including from the ED track board in Haiku, and speech models detect specialty, language and multiple speakers without manual adjustment. Capture happens inside the clinician's workflow, and nothing starts it on a schedule or from an outside event.

Sourceabridge.com/press-release/abridge-inside-for-emergency-medicine-announcementread 2026-09-29

Heidi Comms agents answer inbound patient calls and messages 24/7 and run outbound reminders and follow-ups by phone and SMS, and athenahealth schedules sync automatically.

Sourcesupport.heidihealth.com/en/articles/13396153-heidi-commsread 2026-09-28

The Contextual Reasoning Engine integrates data from previous patient encounters, health system-specific guidelines and clinician preferences, context-aware evidence surfaces clinical insights from UpToDate, NEJM and JAMA contextualized to the encounter, and payer coverage requirements arrive through Availity's FHIR-native APIs for prior authorization. That context is gathered for each encounter and the literature is chosen by Abridge, and no store of the health system's own documents that the product searches is described.

Sourceabridge.com/abridge-contextual-reasoning-engineread 2026-09-29

Heidi Evidence answers from journals and literature (Wiley, Cochrane, BMJ, NEJM), and patient context comes from the EHR list or a pasted copy per session. Evidence draws on sources Heidi curates and does not retrieve from the customer's own knowledge.

Sourceheidihealth.comread 2026-09-28

Editing tools adapt to clinician preferences, and the Contextual Reasoning Engine carries clinician preferences and data from previous patient encounters into each note. The personalization follows each clinician's style, and how long it lasts, or how a clinician reviews or deletes it, is not described.

Sourceabridge.com/platform/cliniciansread 2026-09-29

Per clinician stores carry across sessions. They hold a word library, pinned and customized templates, and note insights that group the corrections a clinician keeps making. Heidi states no lifetime or deletion path, and auto-edit rules are settings applied as rules.

Sourceheidihealth.comread 2026-09-28

Clinician review and sign off is a required step in the core workflow, since no one can commit a drafted note to the record without a clinician editing and signing it. Linked Evidence exists so the clinician can check each sentence against the source audio before signing.

Sourceabridge.com/press-release/abridge-inside-emoryread 2026-09-29

Nothing goes to the patient until the clinician has read the recap and approved it, and the Comms agent transfers the call to the reception team as soon as a patient asks for a human.

Sourceheidihealth.comread 2026-09-28

The trust center lists SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 reports validated by an independent auditor for security and confidentiality, plus HIPAA, TX-RAMP and CCPA. Customer facing controls include audit logging, event and audit log management, single sign on, multi factor authentication, role based access, application and network penetration testing, and certificates of destruction, and a security whitepaper, network diagram, model cards and subprocessor list are published.

Sourcetrust.abridge.comread 2026-08-30

Heidi lists SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, HIPAA, GDPR, Cyber Essentials Plus and UK Class I medical device status, with SSO available and team features on the Practice plan. The reports themselves are requested through Heidi's trust center.

Sourceheidihealth.comread 2026-09-28

Linked Evidence makes notes auditable by tying each AI-generated output to its source information across all input data, so every sentence of the note carries a record of what it was drawn from, and the trust center documents detailed audit logs of system activity, including access to and modification of sensitive data, kept in immutable storage. No run or step view of the scribe's work is described.

Sourceabridge-contextual-reasoning-engine and trust.abridge.com; abridge.com/abridge-contextual-reasoning-engineread 2026-09-29

Every Comms interaction is logged with its transcript and outcome, and every call keeps a full transcript and recording for review. Scribe sessions have no comparable action record.

Sourcesupport.heidihealth.com/en/articles/13396153-heidi-commsread 2026-09-28

Abridge runs only as SaaS, hosted on Google Cloud with US based data centers, and offers no customer selectable region, no VPC, no on premises option and no deployment inside the customer's own tenant. It holds TX-RAMP authorization and keeps alternate processing sites for business continuity and disaster recovery.

Sourcetrust.abridge.comread 2026-08-30

Regions are mapped for AU, US, EU, CA and UK, and custom hosting is offered on Enterprise. Heidi does not say how a customer's region gets assigned.

Sourceheidihealth.com/developers/additional-resources/region-mappingread 2026-09-28

Abridge ships note structures tuned per setting and specialty across 55 plus specialties and 28 plus languages, with purpose built variants for emergency medicine, inpatient and nursing documentation co developed with Mayo Clinic and Epic. These variants are built by Abridge, and there is no library of templates or agents for customers to install.

Sourceabridge.com/press-release/abridge-inside-for-emergency-medicine-announcementread 2026-09-29

Standard and advanced templates, template customization and team template sharing on Practice give clinicians ready note formats, and Scribe, Evidence and Comms are separate products. The templates are note formats the clinician uses and shares, not adoptable agents, and there is no agent catalog.

Sourcesupport.heidihealth.com/en/articles/8885030-heidi-s-pricing-plans-cost-and-featuresread 2026-09-28

OpenAI and Google Cloud appear as data service vendors on the trust center's subprocessor list. No second model is named, no routing between models is described, and customers and admins cannot choose a model.

Sourcetrust.abridge.comread 2026-08-30

No model provider is named, and the customer has no model choice or routing.

Sourceheidihealth.com/developersread 2026-09-28

No API, SDK, developer portal or MCP server for Abridge's own platform is published, and integration runs through native Epic embedding and partner connections. An API for licensed developers has been reported by a third party research profile, but Abridge does not describe one itself.

Sourceabridge.com, platform/clinicians, abridge-contextual-reasoning-engine and trust.abridge.comread 2026-09-29

The Heidi API, with public developer documentation, covers sessions with context and coding, transcription, consult and sectional notes, documents, templates, patient profiles and Ask Heidi. A Heidi Widget comes with an SDK, plus a beta Usage API. The API and Widget are closed to new integrations in Australia and New Zealand.

Sourceheidihealth.com/developersread 2026-09-28

Abridge publishes model cards on its trust center, and an independent peer reviewed study with Kaiser Permanente across 1,306 clinicians, published in NEJM AI, evaluated the product. Customers get no testing, evaluation or regression tools of their own, and clinicians' corrections at sign off are the only feedback path.

Sourcetrust.abridge.comread 2026-08-30

Customers have no evaluation or testing surface for the scribe or Comms agents. Usage and time-saved figures are Heidi's own measurements.

Sourceheidihealth.comread 2026-09-28

Operates through ambient audio capture and native EHR embedding with write back through Epic's own interfaces; no agent operates third party software through a browser or computer interface.

Sourceabridge.com/press-release/abridge-inside-emoryread 2026-09-29

There is no browser or computer control. Heidi reaches EHRs through named integrations, and Heidi Desktop is an app the clinician uses, not an agent operating other software.

Sourceheidihealth.com/en-us/integrationsread 2026-09-28