Hospitals are making great strides with ambient documentation for physicians — but nurses have been left behind. Most nurse charting still requires clicking through sheets, rows and menus, stealing time from patient interaction and other activities. What if they could document in real time using their voice instead?
That’s the power of Aiva’s Nurse Assistant: ambient documentation designed for the way nurses actually work. Unlike ambient solutions for doctors that focus on narrative dictation, Aiva’s app enables real-time entry of discrete data and longer-form notes — all via conversational voice or text. That’s crucial for nurses, who often need their documentation reflected in the EHR instantly to inform care decisions.
Aiva is already used by major health systems like Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and BayCare Health. Cedars-Sinai has talked to Becker’s about their ROI from ambient documentation for nurses, and they recently reported metrics in webinars for the AONL and the AMIA. Highlights include:
Perhaps most impressively, nurses aren’t just using Nurse Assistant: 67% say they actually enjoy it. How many of your current apps get that kind of response?
“The team is super excited,” said Liza Redmond, Nurse Manager at BayCare St Anthony Hospital. “It gives them more time with patients and less behind a computer.”
While physicians often dictate long notes that are transcribed and reviewed later, nurses mostly chart structured data in real time — often across multiple rows in flowsheets, with cascading logic and drop-down options. They also document progress notes and comments, but most of what they chart needs to be instantly visible in the record.
“We’ve had a history in healthcare of pushing technology out to nurses without really ensuring it supports nursing workflow and practice.”
– Kathleen Harmon, MS, RN, Clinical Innovation Advisor at Aiva Interview with AVIA Health
That’s why ambient documentation for nurses must go beyond passive voice capture. Aiva is built for the fast-paced, task-oriented world of nursing:
A few numbers tell the story:
600–800 data points are documented during a typical 12-hour shift Source
25% to 41% or their shift is spent documenting Source
69% blame poor EHR usability for job dissatisfaction Source
Clinician burnout is directly tied to documentation burden Source
45% of inpatient nurses plan to leave their jobs in the next 6 months Source
Hospitals want to do right by their nurses. They care about nurses’ wellbeing, of course, but they’ve also come to realize the tremendous cost of dissatisfaction and inefficiency in their single-largest department.
86% of hospital CEOs cite RN shortage as a major concern Source
$61,110 is the cost per bedside RN turnover Source
$70,000 is the cost of non-compliance related to hospital-acquired pressure injury Source
There’s a 5% - 25% increase in patient satisfaction for every 25% increase in nurse satisfaction. Source
There’s been a 30% - 45% increase in overtime as a percentage of total hospital labor cost Source
Nurses log into Aiva’s app using their standard credentials on hospital-issued iPhones or Androids. To identify the patient, they say something like:
“Room 8915 has back pain rated 3.”
They confirm Aiva’s proposed chart entry, which is then written to the patient’s record in seconds, not minutes. If the nurse wants to change or correct the entry, they can do that with their voice too.
Unlike embedded tools that require extra clicks, Aiva is designed for speed, accuracy, and usability, offering a single interface for ambient documentation, smart room control, reminders, and EHR data access.
Ambient tools should save time across the board, not just for charting. Nurses waste precious time navigating many other systems when they’d rather be doing hands-on patient care. Aiva already integrates with 30+ nurse-facing systems, enabling conversational control over:
Hospitals using Aiva can earn ROI across multiple fronts:
Aiva’s interface feels like a modern messaging app — no bloated screens, no hunting through menus. It adapts to your roles:
“Wow, so in the time it takes me to badge into the computer, I’ve already completed the task in Aiva.” –
Nurse Manager. Cedars-Sinai
Hundreds of nurses are using Aiva for ambient documentation, and you can hear them talk about their experience in these two videos:
If you’re a CMIO, CNIO, CIO, or nurse leader evaluating ambient documentation for nurses, be sure to ask these questions about any app you consider:
Aiva checks all of these boxes.
“It’s a lifesaver. My teammates keep asking how I’m finishing so fast.” – RN, Cedars-Sinai
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