Doctors adopt OpenEvidence AI tool

OpenEvidence, an AI search and decision-support tool built for clinicians, is moving from individual doctor use toward formal deployment inside hospital systems. NBC News reported on May 13 that the platform was used by about 65% of U.S. doctors across nearly 27 million clinical encounters in April, citing company figures and interviews with physicians and administrators. OpenEvidence says it is free for verified healthcare professionals and grounds answers in peer-reviewed medical sources rather than the broader internet. Hospitals including Mount Sinai and Sutter Health have announced 2026 collaborations to place the tool inside clinical workflows and electronic records. ### Why are doctors using this instead of a general chatbot? OpenEvidence says its product is restricted to verified clinicians and built on licensed medical sources including The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, NCCN guidelines and Cochrane reviews. The company describes it as an AI copilot for point-of-care decisions and says it has supported more than 200 million AI-powered clinical consultations by U.S. doctors and other frontline clinicians. (nbcnews.com) Daniel Nadler, OpenEvidence’s founder and chief executive, said in a January 21 funding announcement that keeping up with new evidence and specialty-guideline changes could take doctors “nine hours of their day” if done manually. The company said then that its medical search engine was used daily on average by more than 40% of U.S. physicians across more than 10,000 hospitals and medical centers. (openevidence.com) ### How big is the adoption claim? NBC News said on May 13 that OpenEvidence had become “a fast friend to America’s doctors” and reported that almost two-thirds of physicians, or roughly 650,000 doctors, actively used the tool. The same report said another 1.2 million clinicians used it internationally and quoted Harvard professor and Massachusetts General Hospital physician Anupam Jena saying, “Everyone is using it.” (businesswire.com) OpenEvidence gave a somewhat different benchmark in its January 21 funding release, saying more than 40% of U.S. physicians used the product daily, on average. The gap appears to reflect different measures — active use versus daily use — though that distinction comes from comparing the company’s separate public statements. (nbcnews.com) ### Which health systems have moved beyond informal use? Mount Sinai Health System and OpenEvidence said on March 31 that they would make the tool accessible directly from within the electronic health record across Mount Sinai. The announcement said the rollout would extend access to clinical users including nurses and pharmacists, not only physicians. (nbcnews.com) Sutter Health and OpenEvidence said on February 11 that they were teaming up to deliver medical data and information to doctors working within electronic health records. Sutter said the collaboration was intended to help physicians quickly find current clinical information inside existing workflows. (openevidence.com) ### What else is OpenEvidence building around the core search product? OpenEvidence’s 2026 announcements show the company widening from search into workflow tools and specialty content. The company announced Coding Intelligence on March 25, a partnership with Tandem on April 2 for prescribing and prior authorizations, and specialty collaborations in oncology, obstetrics and gynecology, urology and asthma between late April and early May. (openevidence.com) The company also announced a $250 million Series D round on January 21 at a $12 billion valuation, led by Thrive Capital and DST Global, bringing total funds raised to nearly $700 million. OpenEvidence said the new money would go to research, development and computing costs tied to its multi-model system for clinical answers. (openevidence.com) ### What remains unsettled as hospitals adopt it? NBC News reported that some experts raised concerns about hallucinations, incomplete answers, limited rigorous studies on patient impact and the possibility that doctors’ evaluation skills could erode with heavier use. The same report said many clinicians and administrators viewed the tool as a time-saver that could improve care, especially when used to speed literature review and clinical lookups. (businesswire.com) Anupam Jena told NBC News that about 60% of searches were about clinical decisions for specific patients and treatment choices. That usage pattern helps explain why formal validation, workflow design and record-system integration are becoming central questions as health systems move from ad hoc use to institutional deployment. That last point is an inference drawn from the reported search mix and the hospital integration announcements. (nbcnews.com) ### What happens next? OpenEvidence’s public announcements page shows a steady cadence of new health-system and specialty-group partnerships through May 11, including recent agreements with the Society of Surgical Oncology, the Global Initiative for Asthma and ACOG. Mount Sinai and Sutter have already announced named deployment plans inside records and physician workflows, making those integrations the clearest next milestones to watch. (nbcnews.com) (openevidence.com)