Allegheny Health Network Explores Ambient AI To Strengthen Population Health

The system also works with Care.ai on smart-room technologies, including virtual nursing and computer vision for fall prevention.

Allegheny Health Network has announced that it is now exploring how ambient AI can advance population health and value-based care across its 14-hospital system.

The effort is being led by the organisation’s new chief digital information officer, Richard Medford, who said the system’s focus is on embedding AI tools directly into clinical workflows.

The health network has a co-development agreement with Abridge and access to insights from its parent organisation, Highmark Health, to integrate patient and member data more seamlessly.

“The real opportunity, from my standpoint, is how do you leverage [ambient] to do population health and value-based care? How do you leverage it to close care gaps? How do you leverage it to ensure there’s [primary care provider] attribution and care alignment?” Dr. Medford said.

He joined the organisation in August, following the appointment of Highmark Health’s chief information digital officer Alistair Erskine. Dr. Medford said he was interested in the network’s close payer-provider alignment, noting that about half of Allegheny Health Network’s patients are insured by Highmark.

“You don’t normally see an insurance company or a health plan talking about how to make the health experience of a patient better,” he said.

The system also works with Care.ai on smart-room technologies, including virtual nursing and computer vision for fall prevention.

Dr. Medford said he hopes to integrate the network’s internally developed generative AI models into Care.ai’s edge computing platform, enabling nurses to ask questions about hospital policies directly through room cameras.

He said he sees ambient AI evolving beyond documentation support to highlighting care gaps and prompting providers at the point of care. Allegheny Health Network currently uses Abridge in its ambulatory clinics and plans to extend AI-assisted scribing to inpatient and emergency settings in 2026.

Highmark Health already develops many AI tools internally, and Dr. Medford said he is adjusting to the system’s preference to build rather than buy.

He also aims to strengthen core Epic functions and adopt more of the EHR’s predictive analytics and AI features. Streamlining AI governance is another priority, with a shift toward a parallel review model for compliance, risk, security and legal processes.

In addition, the health network is establishing a command centre for transfers, capacity management and virtual care.

The facility is expected to launch in the first half of next year, supported by Epic’s Grand Central module. “There’s a nice mix of core basic things that need to be done, and things that are super exciting — and trying to balance those two,” Dr. Medford said.

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