This Pittsburgh-created app acts as your medical memory after a doctor’s visit

We’ve all experienced the medical appointment in which the doctor asks questions and logs answers on a laptop. Afterward, we can’t recall some of the doctor’s explanations. Or maybe a family member sits in to take notes but struggles to write down the medical terminology and doctor’s instructions correctly.

Now, an app created by Pittsburgh startup Abridge uses artificial intelligence to generate a post-visit summary for patients and physicians. The goal, says Abridge co-founder and CEO, UPMC cardiologist Dr. Shiv Rao, is to empower patients to take a more active role in their care and assist clinicians with the burden of medical record-keeping.

The company was inspired by Rao’s own family experience with a rare disease and his experiences as a physician. The free app records conversations and its machine learning, designed by Carnegie Mellon University researchers at Abridge, extracts only medical-related information — not comments about the weather or the Steelers — and transcribes it into a “smart” summary.

Learn more about this helpful and innovative app here in NEXTpittsburgh.