NRC Health Introduces Ambient Listening and Agentic AI to Transform Leader Rounding and Healthcare Experience Management
NRC Health has unveiled a significant advancement in healthcare experience management with the introduction of new artificial intelligence capabilities that combine ambient listening and agentic AI. Designed specifically for healthcare environments, the technology aims to help leaders capture richer insights from patient and staff interactions while reducing the administrative burden associated with documentation.
The company’s latest innovation reflects a growing trend in healthcare toward leveraging AI to improve operational efficiency without compromising the human connection that remains central to patient care. By automatically capturing and organizing information from conversations, the technology allows healthcare leaders to remain fully engaged during interactions while documentation and analysis occur seamlessly in the background.
At the heart of the solution is Huey™, NRC Health’s proprietary AI engine developed specifically for healthcare applications. Built with healthcare regulations, privacy requirements, and patient sensitivity in mind, the platform focuses on understanding human sentiment, context, and intent while supporting healthcare organizations in their efforts to improve patient experiences and operational performance.
The first application of the technology has been deployed in leader rounding, a critical practice in healthcare organizations where leaders engage directly with patients, families, and staff members to better understand their experiences, identify concerns, and strengthen relationships. Traditionally, leader rounding requires extensive note-taking and follow-up documentation, often creating administrative challenges for healthcare leaders who are already managing demanding schedules.
NRC Health’s ambient listening capabilities address this challenge by enabling leaders to initiate the technology with a simple tap. The system then listens to conversations, captures key insights, and generates ready-to-review documentation automatically. This approach not only reduces paperwork but also improves the quality and completeness of records generated during rounding interactions.
According to NRC Health Chief Executive Officer Trent Green, healthcare organizations continue to face mounting pressure to improve quality, patient satisfaction, and operational outcomes while managing limited resources and increasing workforce demands.
“Healthcare leaders are under immense pressure to improve experience, quality, and outcomes, but they’re stretched thin,” Green said. “AI should take work off their plates, not add to it. Because we’ve focused exclusively on healthcare for more than 45 years, we’ve designed these capabilities to enable leaders, keeping them present with patients and staff while documentation and reporting happen in the background.”
Unlike traditional documentation systems that rely heavily on manual data entry, NRC Health’s solution captures the sentiment, tone, and context of conversations. This enables healthcare organizations to gain deeper insights into patient experiences and staff concerns while generating more meaningful data for analysis and decision-making.
The company reports that early deployments have already demonstrated substantial improvements in both the quantity and quality of documentation generated during leader rounding activities. Initial health-system pilots revealed that leaders were able to capture more than 60 times greater narrative detail compared with traditional documentation approaches.
In addition to increasing documentation volume, the technology significantly improved record completeness. More than 90% of rounding interactions in pilot programs included comprehensive, context-rich documentation, reducing reliance on abbreviated notes and improving the quality of information available for analytics, coaching, and operational planning.
The innovation represents a broader shift in healthcare experience management from retrospective measurement toward real-time understanding. Rather than collecting feedback after patient encounters have occurred, organizations can now gain immediate visibility into patient sentiment and interaction quality while care is being delivered.
Helen Hrdy, Chief Operating Officer at NRC Health, emphasized the transformative potential of this approach.
This represents a shift from measuring experience after the fact to understanding it as it’s happening,” Hrdy said. “Instead of asking healthcare teams to do more administrative work, we’re using technology to quietly support them, capturing insight automatically so leaders can focus on care, coaching, and connection.”
One of the early organizations exploring the technology is UofL Health, an integrated academic health system that provides patient-centered care across multiple hospitals and clinical locations. Leaders at the organization have been evaluating how AI-enabled rounding can help them better understand patient experiences and identify opportunities for improvement.
Mary Tallant, System Director of Patient Experience at UofL Health, noted that the technology provides a much deeper level of insight than traditional reporting methods.
Our comparison reports are helpful, but this is ten times more revealing,” Tallant said. “It’s not just showing whether rounding happened—it’s showing the caliber of the interaction and what’s really going on in those conversations.”
By analyzing conversations and organizing insights into clear themes, the platform helps leaders identify coaching opportunities, recognize exceptional staff performance, and address concerns before they escalate. This enhanced visibility enables organizations to take more proactive actions that improve patient experiences and strengthen workplace culture.
Katie Haifley, Senior Director of Product at NRC Health, highlighted the company’s focus on making AI a supportive tool rather than an additional task for healthcare workers.
We designed ambient listening with agentic AI so leaders can simply have a conversation and stay focused on the person in front of them while AI captures the details in the background,” Haifley said. “Rather than adding work, we’re shifting time away from manual documentation and back into meaningful connection.”
Another healthcare organization participating in early adoption efforts is Parkview Health, a 15-hospital health system serving communities throughout Indiana and northwest Ohio. The organization has incorporated ambient listening capabilities into nurse leader rounding activities and has reported positive experiences with the technology.
Julie Parrett, Assistant Manager at Parkview Hospital Randallia, described how the solution has simplified the rounding process while improving documentation quality.
We just pull up a chair, set the phone down, and have our conversations with our patients—and it has been wonderful,” Parrett said. “It’s so much more efficient, and it’s capturing things we wouldn’t have remembered or had time to document before.”
Beyond improving efficiency, the technology may also help healthcare organizations identify patterns and trends that would otherwise be difficult to recognize through manual documentation alone. As more conversations are captured and analyzed, organizations can gain a clearer understanding of recurring patient needs, service gaps, and opportunities for improvement.
Phelps Health, a health system located in south-central Missouri, has also participated in pilot deployments of the technology. The organization reported that rounds utilizing ambient listening captured five times more patient comment data than traditional approaches. Additionally, the AI system generated the equivalent of five to six minutes of documentation for each interaction, significantly reducing administrative workload for staff.
Emily Marie Jones, Director of Patient Experience at Phelps Health, believes the technology will support more personalized patient care over time.
It’s enhancing the insight we’re able to capture and creating more opportunities for our rounding to have greater impact,” Jones said. “Over time, it will help us recognize patterns—like when a patient regularly feels cold or needs something specific—so we can better anticipate those needs and personalize their experience.”
As healthcare organizations continue to seek solutions that balance efficiency with patient-centered care, NRC Health’s combination of ambient listening and agentic AI represents an important step toward more intelligent and responsive experience management. By reducing administrative burdens while delivering richer, actionable insights, the technology enables healthcare leaders to spend more time focusing on what matters most—building meaningful connections with patients and staff.
Through this innovation, NRC Health aims to help healthcare organizations move more quickly from insight to action, strengthening trust, improving outcomes, and fostering environments where patients and caregivers feel heard, supported, and valued. As adoption expands, the company believes AI-enabled experience management will play an increasingly important role in helping healthcare systems deliver higher-quality care while maintaining the human relationships at the center of the healthcare experience.
About
Another pilot site, south-central Missouri health system Phelps Health, found that rounds using ambient listening captured 5X more comment data, with AI generating the equivalent of five to six minutes of documentation per interaction on behalf of the rounder.
It’s enhancing the insight we’re able to capture and creating more opportunities for our rounding to have greater impact,” said Emily Marie Jones, Director of Patient Experience at Phelps Health. “Over time, it will help us recognize patterns—like when a patient regularly feels cold or needs something specific—so we can better anticipate those needs and personalize their experience.”
By bringing AI enablement into everyday interactions, NRC Health is helping healthcare organizations move more quickly from insight to action, strengthening trust, improving performance, and reinforcing a culture where people feel heard, supported, and valued.
