Getting Started Nabla: Ambient AI Scribing for Clinicians

Getting Started Nabla: Ambient AI Scribing for Clinicians remains one of the most effective options available, offering teams a practical framework for faster, more reliable results.

🎯 Quick Start Summary: This guide provides healthcare professionals with a comprehensive walkthrough to set up and effectively use Nabla's Ambient AI Scribe for clinical documentation. You'll learn to integrate Nabla into your existing EHR, generate clinical notes in seconds, and streamline patient care, ultimately reducing documentation time by up to 50% and improving focus during consultations. Expect to complete the initial setup in under 30 minutes, allowing you to begin capturing insights from your very first patient encounter.

What Is Nabla?

Nabla is a cutting-edge ambient AI clinical scribe designed specifically for healthcare professionals. It leverages advanced artificial intelligence to listen to patient-clinician conversations in real-time, automatically transcribing and structuring these discussions into comprehensive clinical notes. This means that instead of spending valuable time typing or dictating during or immediately after a patient visit, clinicians can maintain eye contact, actively listen, and fully engage with their patients.

For healthcare providers grappling with increasing administrative burdens and the pervasive issue of burnout, Nabla presents a powerful solution. It automates the arduous task of clinical documentation, freeing up clinicians to focus on direct patient care. Nabla is built with stringent HIPAA and GDPR compliance at its core, ensuring patient data privacy and security. It avoids storing audio or video recordings, processing conversations in real-time and generating notes without creating permanent media files. This focus on privacy, combined with its ability to support multiple languages and adapt to various medical specialties, makes Nabla an indispensable tool for modern medical practices.

From solo practitioners to large health systems, Nabla streamlines workflows, enhances documentation accuracy, and ultimately improves the patient experience by allowing clinicians to be fully present. The platform's direct integration with major EHR systems further cements its role as a seamless addition to existing clinical operations, providing a bridge between natural conversational interactions and structured medical records.

Before You Start: Prerequisites

Before diving into Nabla's setup, it's essential to ensure you have the right components in place. This preparation will make your onboarding journey smooth and efficient, allowing for a quicker transition to automated documentation.

It's highly recommended to start with Nabla's free tier to familiarize yourself with the interface and core functionalities. This allows you to process up to 30 consultations per month, which is ample for initial testing and integration into your workflow before committing to a paid plan. A stable internet connection is crucial for real-time processing, and a high-quality microphone or headset will ensure optimal accuracy for the ambient AI scribe during patient encounters. Source: Nabla Official Website

Step 1: Creating Your Account

Navigating to the Nabla platform to create your account is the first crucial step. The process is designed to be straightforward, typically taking less than five minutes.

1. Access the Nabla Website: Open your web browser and navigate to the official Nabla website. Look for a prominent "Sign Up" or "Get Started Free" button, usually located in the top right corner of the homepage.
2. Choose Your Plan: You'll be presented with options for a Free plan or to start a Pro trial. For initial evaluation, select the "Free forever" option. This allows you to explore Nabla's core features with up to 30 consultations per month.
3. Enter Your Details: Provide your professional email address, create a secure password, and enter your name. Nabla will often ask for your medical specialty (e.g., Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, Therapy) at this stage to help tailor default note templates.
4. Verify Your Email: A verification email will be sent to the address you provided. Click the link in this email to confirm your account and proceed. This step is critical for security and to activate your account.
5. Initial Survey (Optional but Recommended): Nabla may present a brief survey about your practice size and current documentation challenges. Providing this information helps Nabla customize your initial experience and offers more relevant onboarding tips.

💡 Pro Tip: When choosing your initial plan, always start with the Free tier. It provides ample capacity for testing Nabla's capabilities in real-world scenarios without any financial commitment. This allows you to thoroughly assess its fit for your practice before upgrading.

Step 2: Initial Configuration

Once your account is active, some initial configuration steps are necessary to tailor Nabla to your specific practice and preferences. This ensures the AI generates notes that align with your clinical style and organizational needs.

1. Set Your Medical Specialty: From your Nabla dashboard, navigate to "Settings" or "Profile." Here, confirm your medical specialty. Nabla uses this information to optimize its AI models for relevant terminology and common note structures specific to fields like pediatrics, cardiology, or general practice. As of March 2026, Nabla supports over 20 major specialties.
2. Configure Note Templates: Nabla offers pre-built templates for various note types (e.g., SOAP, H&P, Consultation). Go to the "Documentation Settings" tab. You can select default preferred templates or even customize existing ones to include specific sections, boilerplate text, or common phrases you use. For example, a pediatrician might add a "Developmental Milestones" section.
3. Microphone and Audio Setup: For optimal performance of the Ambient AI Scribe, ensure your microphone is correctly set up. In Nabla's settings, you'll find an "Audio Input" section. Select your preferred microphone (e.g., an external USB headset, built-in laptop mic) and run a quick audio test to verify sound quality and volume. A clear audio input is paramount for dictation accuracy, reducing the need for extensive manual edits later. Source: Clinical Documentation Best Practices 2024
4. Language Preferences: If you conduct consultations in multiple languages, navigate to "Language Settings." Nabla supports several languages, allowing you to switch the primary transcription language. This ensures the AI correctly processes and transcribes conversations spoken in languages other than English, a feature highly valued by clinicians in diverse communities.

Step 3: Your First Ambient AI Scribe Session

This is where you experience Nabla's core power. Running your first ambient AI scribe session demonstrates how effortlessly it captures your patient conversations and translates them into structured notes.

1. Start a New Consultation: From your Nabla dashboard, click on the prominent "Start Consultation" button. This will open the scribe interface.
2. Position Your Device: Place your computer or device with the microphone close to both you and your patient. Ensure minimal background noise for the best transcription accuracy.
3. Begin the Conversation: Conduct your patient consultation naturally. Speak clearly and at a normal pace. Nabla's AI will listen in real-time, displaying a live transcript (optional, can be turned off for less distraction) as you speak. The beauty of ambient AI is that you don't need to speak to the AI, just naturally converse with your patient.
4. End the Consultation: Once your consultation is complete, click the "End Consultation" button in the Nabla interface.
5. Review Generated Notes: Within seconds, Nabla will process the conversation and present you with a draft clinical note. This note will typically be structured according to your chosen template (e.g., SOAP format, H&P). Review the note for accuracy, clarity, and completeness. You can edit any section directly within Nabla's interface, adding specific details, clarifying ambiguous phrases, or adjusting the summary.

💡 Pro Tip: While Nabla's AI is highly accurate, always perform a quick review of the generated note before finalizing. The AI is a powerful assistant, but the ultimate responsibility for clinical accuracy remains with the clinician. This review process also helps the AI learn your specific dictation patterns and preferences over time, leading to even better accuracy.

Step 4: Connecting Integrations

Nabla's true value is unlocked when it integrates seamlessly with your existing Electronic Health Record (EHR) system. This eliminates manual copy-pasting and ensures a continuous, efficient workflow.

1. Access Integration Settings: From your Nabla dashboard, navigate to "Settings" and then select the "Integrations" tab.
2. Select Your EHR: You'll see a list of supported EHR systems, including Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner), and NextGen Healthcare. Click on your specific EHR system.
3. Initiate Connection: Follow the on-screen prompts for your chosen EHR. This usually involves granting Nabla permission to access your EHR via API or through a secure browser extension. You may need to log in to your EHR system within Nabla's interface or provide specific API keys, depending on your organization's setup. This process is typically guided by your IT department for enterprise accounts or a straightforward OAuth consent for smaller practices. For example, Epic integration often involves a secure token exchange.
4. Map Data Fields: Once connected, you'll need to map sections of Nabla's generated notes to corresponding fields within your EHR. For instance, the "Chief Complaint" section in Nabla should map to the "Reason for Visit" field in your EHR. Nabla often provides default mappings, but you can customize them to fit your specific EHR templates.
5. Test the Integration: After mapping, perform a test transfer. Generate a short, fictional note in Nabla and attempt to push it to your EHR. Verify that the note appears correctly within the patient's chart and that all mapped fields are populated as expected. This ensures data fidelity and confirms the integration is working as intended.

💡 Pro Tip: Securely managing access to your EHR is paramount. If you're part of a larger organization, consult with your IT department or EHR administrator before initiating any integrations. They can provide specific guidelines and ensure compliance with institutional security policies.

Step 5: Setting Up Your Daily Workflow

Integrating Nabla into your daily routine requires intentional planning to fully leverage its benefits. This step focuses on establishing a consistent workflow that minimizes disruption and maximizes efficiency.

1. Pre-Consultation Prep: Before each patient encounter, ensure Nabla is open and ready. For practices using a desktop application or a specific browser tab, have it launched. If using a mobile app (still evolving, but functional for basic dictation), ensure it's logged in. Double-check your microphone connection.
2. During Consultation: Engage naturally with your patient. Allow Nabla to run in the background. Resist the urge to constantly check the live transcript if you find it distracting. Your primary focus should remain on the patient.
3. Post-Consultation Review & Refine: Immediately after the patient leaves, use the few minutes before the next one to review the Nabla-generated note. This "just-in-time" review is crucial. Make any necessary edits, add specific nuances, and confirm medical accuracy. Studies have shown that immediate review significantly reduces the likelihood of documentation errors. Source: Journal of Medical Systems, 2023
4. Push to EHR: Once satisfied with the note, click the "Push to EHR" button within Nabla. The note will automatically transfer to the correct patient chart, saving you significant time.
5. Utilize Patient Instructions and Coding: If enabled, review the automatically generated patient instructions and suggested ICD-10 codes. Adjust as needed and incorporate them into your patient hand-off or billing process. This further streamlines administrative tasks.
6. Regular Feedback (Optional): While not a daily step, occasionally providing feedback to Nabla on the accuracy or structure of notes can help the AI learn and improve specifically for your voice and clinical style. This is typically done through a thumbs up/down icon or a feedback form in the note review section.

💡 Pro Tip: Consider dedicating the first 5-10 minutes of your morning to a quick setup check: ensure Nabla is connected, your mic is working, and your preferred template is selected. This small investment of time can prevent workflow disruptions throughout a busy day and ensure consistent, high-quality documentation.