Paragon Denali Introduces Nabla for Ambient Listening in Rural Hospitals
Altera Digital Health, a global leader in health IT solutions, has announced the general availability of Nabla’s ambient artificial intelligence (AI) assistant for clinicians using its Paragon® Denali electronic health record (EHR) platform. This powerful integration is designed specifically to benefit rural, critical access, and community hospitals by significantly reducing administrative burdens for providers—potentially saving them up to two hours per day on clinical documentation.
Physician burnout continues to be a pressing issue across healthcare. On average, clinicians spend 15.5 hours per week on administrative tasks, with more than half of that time—around nine hours—dedicated to EHR documentation alone. These demands pull healthcare professionals away from face-to-face patient care and contribute to nearly six hours per week of after-hours work, often referred to as “pajama time.”
To help alleviate this growing challenge, Nabla’s AI assistant seamlessly integrates into the Paragon Denali cloud-native platform, enabling clinicians to generate complete clinical notes automatically within just five seconds. This ambient listening solution captures conversations during patient visits and uses AI to produce structured, high-quality notes directly in the EHR, reducing the number of clicks, keystrokes, and overall screen time required.
Nabla’s API is robust and flexible, supporting over 55 medical specialties and more than 35 languages. It offers a wide range of features including real-time transcription, note generation, patient instruction creation, structured data extraction, and dictation support. Clinicians can customize note templates and adjust the system to suit their preferred documentation style, making the experience both efficient and personal.
By streamlining documentation, the integration allows providers to focus more on direct patient care. This not only improves the quality of patient interactions but also increases appointment availability—an especially important advantage for underserved or remote communities that often face limited access to healthcare services.
“Altera’s ambient listening is not just innovative, it is going to be a necessity to improve patient care, quality, efficiency and flow,” said Kyle Kellum, CEO of Jennie M. Melham Memorial Medical Center, a longtime Paragon client. “Ambient listening is something every clinic should consider to help drive operational sustainability.”
Altera introduced Paragon Denali in late 2024, and the platform is already being implemented in several community hospitals. Built on Microsoft Azure and designed with a modern, containerized services architecture, Paragon Denali follows a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. This architecture enables healthcare organizations to adopt and scale new features, such as Nabla, with minimal disruption to operations or patient care.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Altera to bring the power of ambient AI to the clinicians they support,” said Delphine Groll, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Nabla. “Our missions align in making advanced technology accessible to providers working in critical access settings, helping reduce administrative burdens so they can dedicate more energy to patient care.”
Altera’s collaboration with Nabla represents a meaningful step toward advancing equity in healthcare technology. Hospitals serving smaller or rural populations often operate under tighter financial and staffing constraints but still face the same industry demands to enhance outcomes, reduce provider burnout, and deliver more value-based care.
“Hospitals with limited budgets and resources still face the same industry-wide pressures to improve patient outcomes and reduce provider burnout,” said Nikhil Bhatia, Vice President of Paragon Solution Management at Altera Digital Health. “Paragon Denali’s integration with Nabla not only provides an innovative way to address longstanding challenges, but it is also a powerful testament to Altera’s overall vision to enable providers, empower patients and transform healthcare organizations.”
About Nabla
Nabla is a leading provider of ambient AI solutions for healthcare. Its cutting-edge AI assistant generates accurate clinical notes from any type of medical encounter across all specialties. Designed using large language models specifically tailored to medical workflows, Nabla integrates with any EHR system, supports more than 35 languages, and now includes an advanced dictation feature—giving clinicians greater control over how they capture and manage patient data. Nabla is committed to reducing clinician stress and improving patient care through smart, proactive AI technology.
