Clinician intelligence platform Abridge says it has been selected to provide ambient AI under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) enterprise contract through a distribution partner. 

The contract allows VA medical centers and regions across the country to bring Abridge to their clinicians. 

Through a competitively awarded pilot, Abridge said it is fully operational on both the older VistA/CPRS EHR and the new Federal EHR being deployed with Oracle, serving thousands of VA clinicians at more than 75 medical centers. (VA is undertaking one of the largest EHR transitions in history.) Throughout the pilot, Abridge's deployment operated under VA security authorization, with veteran data handled under VA's security controls.

At VA, Abridge is already live in primary care, across a dozen specialties, and in Clinical Resource Hubs, VA's virtual care network. The platform is validated to support encounters in more than 28 languages across specialties and care settings, the company said. 

The multiple-award contract carries a total ceiling of $776 million over five years across all vendors who are eligible to compete for task orders.

Abridge’s platform is designed to support clinicians with everything from drafting clinical documentation to surfacing context-aware clinical insights.

During a June 2026 public meeting, Abridge outlined how its clinical intelligence platform is evolving to add AI-based features before, during and after patient visits. Abridge’s solution is now live at more than 300 health systems, including community health centers, specialty hospitals, and the largest providers in the country. Abridge also is developing connections with payers and life sciences organizations through clinical workflows. At the time, Abridge also said it was launching a coalition with Aetna and health systems Emory Healthcare and Hartford HealthCare to explore how health systems and payers can work together through trusted clinical workflows to account for the full clinical picture of each patient at the moment care is delivered.

In a statement, Shiv Rao, M.D., CEO and co-founder of Abridge, discussed the company's experience working with the VA: “We’ve worked to earn trust by meeting them where they are and preserving clinical context across providers, specialties, care settings, and the EHR migration. As a cardiologist, I’ve had the privilege of treating veterans at VA medical centers in Ann Arbor and Pittsburgh. We've built Abridge to meet the scale and complexity that an enterprise-wide deployment requires.” 

A consultant to Abridge is David Shulkin, M.D., former U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, who issued a statement saying: “What matters most during a transition of this scale is that care stays connected for every veteran. Abridge has proven its platform can support an integrated, consistent experience for VA clinicians and the veterans they serve.” 

David Raths is a Contributing Senior Editor for Healthcare Innovation, focusing on clinical informatics, learning health systems and value-based care transformation. He has been interviewing health system CIOs and CMIOs since 2006.

 Follow him on Twitter @DavidRaths