Ambient AI for Reducing Nursing Staff Documentation Time

May 27, 2026 updated by: University of Wisconsin, Madison

An EHR-Embedded Pragmatic Stepped-Wedge Clinical Trial of Ambient Artificial Intelligence to Reduce Nursing Staff Documentation Time

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn whether using Ambient Artificial Intelligence for nursing staff documentation in an inpatient setting will reduce the time spent in flowsheet documentation and enhance nurse staffing wellbeing.

Participants will use Ambient Listening AI software to draft documentation in discrete fields.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

This pragmatic trial is being conducted to test the effectiveness of Artificial Intelligence Driven Ambient Listening software on reducing time in flowsheet documentation among Registered Nurses (RNs) and nursing assistants (NAs) in an inpatient setting. The Ambient AI software uses Automated Speech Recognition technology with Large Language Models to automatically generate discrete flowsheet values from nurse-patient conversations in real-time. The clinical trial is an examination of the impact and usability of this implementation on the workload and well-being of nurses involved in the rollout of the software pragmatic Electronic Health Record embedded design integrated into clinical workflows and the health system IT infrastructure.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

250

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

  • Name: Ann Wieben, PhD, RN
  • Phone Number: 6082651029
  • Email: wieben@wisc.edu

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Wisconsin
      • Madison, Wisconsin, United States, 53718
        • Recruiting
        • UW Health - East Madison Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Willingness to engage and use ambient technology
  • English speaking
  • All Registered Nurses and Nursing Assistants with the study inpatient units
  • Attest to completing all required training

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Planned leave more than 6 weeks during study timeframe

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Ambient Listening Group 1
The hospital unit will be randomized and all nursing staff within the unit will have access to start using Ambient AI at week 8.
Other: Artificial Intelligence
Ambient AI software intervention is implemented into the nursing staff workflow. The software incorporates Automated Speech Recognition technology with Large Language Models to generate clinical documentation in real-time
Experimental: Ambient Listening Group 2
The hospital unit will be randomized and all nursing staff within the unit will have access to start using Ambient AI at week 11.
Other: Artificial Intelligence
Ambient AI software intervention is implemented into the nursing staff workflow. The software incorporates Automated Speech Recognition technology with Large Language Models to generate clinical documentation in real-time
Experimental: Ambient Listening Group 3
The hospital unit will be randomized and all nursing staff within the unit will have access to start using Ambient AI at week 14.
Other: Artificial Intelligence
Ambient AI software intervention is implemented into the nursing staff workflow. The software incorporates Automated Speech Recognition technology with Large Language Models to generate clinical documentation in real-time

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Active Time Spent in Flowsheets per shift hour
Time Frame: Baseline to 22 weeks
To assess a change in nursing staff documentation time, the change active time spent in flowsheets per shift hour with the use of the Ambient Listening tool versus usual documentation will be reported.
Baseline to 22 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Active Time Spent in Flowsheets per patient per shift
Time Frame: Baseline to 22 weeks
To assess nursing staff documentation burden, the change in active time spent in flowsheets per patient shift will be reported.
Baseline to 22 weeks
Change in the number of clicks or taps in Flowsheets
Time Frame: Baseline to 22 weeks
To assess nursing staff documentation burden, the change in the number of clicks or taps in flowsheets will be reported.
Baseline to 22 weeks
Change in Amount of Overtime Charting
Time Frame: Baseline to 22 weeks
To assess nursing staff documentation burden, the change in time spent documenting after end time of assignment will be reported.
Baseline to 22 weeks
Change in Clinician Worklife Survey (Mini-Z) Score
Time Frame: Baseline to 22 weeks
Professional Wellbeing will be assessed with the Mini Z 3.0, a 10 item tool (plus one open-ended question) designed to quickly assess clinician burnout, stress, satisfaction, and work-life drivers such as workload control, teamwork, and electronic health record (EHR) related stressors. The Mini Z survey is scored by summing responses to the first 10 items, each rated on a 1-5 Likert scale, producing a total score ranging from 10 to 50. Higher scores indicate better worklife conditions, with scores of 40 or above reflecting a "joyful" workplace.
Baseline to 22 weeks
Change in Mini-Z Subscale Scores: Supportive Work Environment
Time Frame: Baseline to 22 weeks
Professional Wellbeing will also be assessed with Mini Z subscales. One Mini-Z subscale measures supportive work environment with 7-items (scores range from 7-35, higher scores indicate more supportive environment).
Baseline to 22 weeks
Change in Mini-Z (3.0) Subscale Scores: EHR Stress
Time Frame: Baseline to 22 weeks
Professional Wellbeing will also be assessed with Mini Z subscales. One Mini-Z subscale measures EHR stress (scores range from 3-15, higher scores indicate more manageable EHR stress).
Baseline to 22 weeks
Change System Usability Scale (SUS)
Time Frame: 11 weeks to 22 weeks
The SUS is a 10-item scale that assesses perceived usability of a system, in this case, the Abridge Ambient Listening Tool. It yields a single score that can range from 0-100 with higher scores indicating higher system usability.
11 weeks to 22 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Ann Wieben, PhD, RN, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • Principal Investigator: Jann Pfaff, PhD, RN, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

May 5, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

December 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

December 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 2, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 2, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

March 6, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

June 1, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 27, 2026

Last Verified

May 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2026-0311
  • UWMSN | Nursing | Admin (Other Identifier: UW Madison)
  • Protocol Version 5/15/26 (Other Identifier: UW Madison)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

We plan to share the majority of our research documentation including the Study Protocol, Statistical Analysis Plan, Informed Consent Plan, Analytics Code, data dictionary, and de-identified survey and interview/focus group results data.

IPD Sharing Time Frame

We will make the IPD information available in early 2027 once we have completed our analysis and are ready for publication. It will be available indefinitely.

IPD Sharing Access Criteria

We will provide a publicly accessible GitLab link where all study materials can be downloaded

IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type

  • STUDY_PROTOCOL
  • SAP
  • ICF
  • ANALYTIC_CODE

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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