Inside FMOL Health’s early bet on Epic’s ambient AI

As health systems look to ease documentation burdens and return clinicians’ focus to the bedside, Baton Rouge, La.-based FMOL Health is rapidly scaling Epic’s ambient AI charting tool after an early pilot showed strong clinician buy-in.

The health system is deploying Epic’s “Chart with Art” across its hospitals and clinics, including in emergency departments where documentation demands are especially high, after serving as one of the first organizations to test the technology.

The tool, released by Epic in early February, uses ambient listening to convert clinician-patient conversations into draft clinical notes. FMOL Health signed an enterprise license in early March following a 60-day pilot, during which clinicians worked closely with Epic’s research and development team to refine the tool.

That collaboration, along with early results, helped solidify confidence in expanding the technology, particularly in the emergency department, where capturing medical decision-making is both complex and critical.

Stephen Hosea, MD, chief medical information officer at Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, said the ED requires detailed documentation of patient conversations, diagnostic decisions and treatment planning.

“That level of conversation is essential not just for documentation, but for continuity of care,” Dr. Hosea told Becker’s. “It helps downstream clinicians, whether in outpatient follow-ups or inpatient settings, better understand the patient’s journey.”

Historically, that documentation has required significant manual effort from clinicians.

“We didn’t go into medicine to spend our time typing notes,” Dr. Hosea said. “With AI assisting in documentation, we can focus more on patient interaction, listening, communicating and providing care.”

Feedback from FMOL Health’s pilot led Epic to enhance the tool’s medical decision-making capabilities, particularly around how conversations are captured and formatted in the record.

“That’s been a major win for us,” Dr. Hosea said. “They were also very hands-on, coming onsite during the initial implementation to understand our workflows and experiences firsthand.”

FMOL Health is now scaling the tool across its organization while transitioning clinicians from legacy documentation platforms. The rollout includes training, onboarding and conversion efforts as adoption expands.

The health system currently has 95 providers using the tool, a number Dr. Hosea expects to grow as more clinicians are trained and onboarded.

Dr. Hosea emphasized that FMOL Health is focused on using AI to support, not replace, clinical decision-making, with all outputs still requiring clinician validation before being shared with patients.

More broadly, he said tools like ambient AI are beginning to shift the clinician experience after years of documentation burden tied to electronic medical records.

“Over the past decade, there’s been a gravitational pull toward the computer,” Dr. Hosea said. “It’s pulled clinicians away from patients.”

With AI taking on more of the documentation workload, that dynamic is starting to change.

“We’re beginning to turn that corner,” he said. “Now we can spend more time with the patient, focusing on the human side of medicine again.”

The post Inside FMOL Health’s early bet on Epic’s ambient AI appeared first on Becker's Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis.