University of Iowa Health Care Deploys Nabla’s Ambient AI at Scale–Generating over 470,000 Encounter Notes to Date

2,200 clinicians.
45,000 daily encounters.
26% sustained reduction in burnout.

University of Iowa Health Care (UIHC) partnered with Nabla to reduce documentation burden, improve clinician satisfaction, and scale ambient AI across one of the nation’s leading academic health systems.

As Iowa’s only comprehensive academic health system, University of Iowa Health Care, delivers primary and specialty care across the state while advancing research and medical education across over 100 locations. They serve patients across the state, and receive a significant volume of out of state referrals, generating a large volume of documentation generated in the EHR, as well as faxed in.

In 2023 a KLAS Arch Collaborative survey was sent to clinicians across the UIHC system to assess satisfaction across job areas, including utilizing the EHR and documentation demands. This survey found that 70% of physicians cited documentation as a barrier to personal efficiency and patient care, highlighting a critical need for both new solutions and a thoughtful implementation approach.

Iowa Health Care

Snapshot

20,000+

employees

1,200+

physicians and dentists

800+

residents and fellows

5,300+

nursing staff

1.3 million +

patient visits annually

The Challenge

Like many large health systems, UIHC clinicians faced growing documentation demands, and many clinicians were reporting increased “pajama time” or after-hours charting, leading to burnout. In addition to 70% of physicians reporting that documentation was a barrier to efficiency and personal care, additional themes emerged:

Significant after-hours charting, or “pajama time”
Administrative burden impacting provider satisfaction
Increased EHR dissatisfaction
Need for scalable, system-wide solution integrated with Epic

As a large academic medical center, UIHC prioritizes innovation that improves both patient care and clinician experience. Leadership sought a solution that could meaningfully reduce documentation time while improving the overall quality and consistency of clinical notes. Just as importantly, they wanted a tool that would support clinician well-being and scale seamlessly across specialties within their Epic environment.

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UIHC began with a five-week pilot of Nabla’s ambient AI assistant.

Nabla:

Generates structured clinical notes in real time that support existing workflows across specialities
Integrates directly into Epic
Allows for streamlined clinician edits and input when needed
Does not retain audio recordings (HIPAA-compliant)

Following the success of the pilot, UIHC expanded deployment across the entire organization. Notably, 100% of clinicians who participated in the pilot continued using Nabla after enterprise-wide implementation, and 30% of clinicians across the system adopted Nabla upon expansion. Instituting an enterprise-level rollout was a strategic priority for UIHC; leadership believed that generating and sustaining excitement would be critical to ensuring a smooth integration into existing workflows.

Clinicians were provided with comprehensive support throughout the rollout. UIHC actively encouraged attendance at live trainings and demonstrations, while also ensuring that asynchronous training options were available to accommodate varying schedules. The Nabla team delivered specialty-specific training sessions to further drive adoption, and together, UIHC and Nabla developed a robust library of resources accessible to all clinicians.

To maximize adoption success, the leadership team closely monitored usage through dashboards, proactively identifying plateaus or declines and delivering targeted support in a timely manner. The strong collaboration between Nabla and UIHC leadership ultimately enabled a seamless transition from pilot to enterprise-wide adoption, reinforcing clinician engagement and establishing a sustainable foundation for long-term success.

Why they chose Nabla

UI Health Care’s team evaluated 2 other solutions prior to selecting Nabla.

Onboarding support

Nabla's team went on-site to onboard providers, assist in adoption, and gather real-time feedback.

Development potential

Ability to develop tailored features for nurses and other healthcare professionals, adapting to their unique clinical documentation workflows and specific needs.