Auckland, New Zealand – 20 November 2025 – AI Care Partner Heidi will be rolled out across all Health New Zealand emergency departments (ED), helping alleviate administrative burdens for ED teams and improve patient care nationwide.
This marks a significant step in applying purpose-built generative AI solutions safely and effectively within New Zealand’s public health system. It will also support the target that 95% of patients are admitted, discharged, or transferred from emergency departments within six hours.
Heidi’s AI scribe technology has proven its impact in trials across the country. During its pilot at Hawke's Bay Hospital’s ED, Heidi reduced average documentation time from around 17 minutes to just over four minutes per patient, freeing clinicians to spend more time with patients. The trial showed clinicians could, on average, see an extra patient per shift, while reducing after-shift administrative work by up to 81%.
Following this success, Heidi is being rolled out across New Zealand’s emergency departments, with 1,000 licences planned for clinicians and an additional 100 for mental health crisis teams in EDs. The initiative comes as part of Health New Zealand’s recently established HealthX innovation programme, focused on identifying and implementing AI-driven solutions to healthcare challenges.
Heidi’s technology is tailored to New Zealand's clinical language and systems, and includes strong security protections to keep patient information safe. It was previously endorsed by Health New Zealand's National Artificial Intelligence and Algorithm Expert Advisory Group (NAIAEAG) successfully completed stringent reviews covering privacy, cybersecurity, and data sovereignty standards.
Dr Thomas Kelly, CEO and Co-founder of Heidi Health, said: "Healthcare professionals should never have to choose between providing quality patient care and their own wellbeing. Yet the realities of an ED, with complex cases, heavy patient demand, and workforce shortages, can make that a difficult balance.
Heidi's ability to allow emergency staff to focus more on patient care, whilst providing much-needed relief from administrative burden, we hope will go some way to making that balance easier. This rollout is a major step for New Zealand’s emergency teams around the country, and we are excited by the opportunity to collaborate in supporting their communities.”
Florian Stroehle, CEO and Co-founder of Hendrix Health, Heidi’s trusted New Zealand partner, emphasised: "The feedback from our initial deployments have been very encouraging, with ED clinicians reporting improved workplace satisfaction and the ability to see more patients. At scale, this will have a positive impact on the wellbeing of our clinician whānau, releasing time to care for patients and therefore leading to better health outcomes."
Sonny Taite, Director of Digital Innovation and AI - Health X, added: "While trialling Heidi’s AI scribe, we’ve seen huge benefits for clinicians. They consistently report having better focus on patients and much less administrative burden. Heidi is already making a measurable impact, and scaling it across EDs is a strong step forward in building a more sustainable health system for everyone."
For more information, see the Health Minister’s announcement here: AI scribe to speed up emergency care for patients