Broadway Medical Centre builds own AI Suite

NEWS  - eHealthNews editor Rebecca McBeth

A Dunedin medical centre has developed what it calls the Broadway Intelligence Suite, combining a number of AI and other digital tools to help it solve multiple friction points. 

Doug Hill, specialist general practitioner and practice owner at Broadway Medical Centre, spoke at HiNZ’s Southern Connections event in Dunedin on July 29 where he said the suite includes Heidi AI, Heron AI, the Well Patient Portal, Copilot and Claude. 

He told attendees the centre started by asking staff about the points of friction that stop the practice from delivering ideal care. The response targets clinical administration, after-hours access, telephone demand, and broader practice management. 

"We could not find a single product that would do the whole thing for us, so we have put together a suite of products which we are now calling the Broadway Intelligence Suite," said Hill. 

The first problem they tackled was clinical administrative burden, which Hill said meant clinicians were finishing notes, completing referrals and managing prescriptions and patient queries well outside normal working hours. 

Broadway introduced Heidi AI as an ambient scribe across the practice, supported by 15 practice-built templates such as a specialist referral template. 

He said a radiology referral template was built to suit community-referred radiology guidelines and the clinic has had no referrals declined since introducing it.  

The practice also replaced its patient portal with the Centrik Well portal to help with after-hours access. This allows patients to book appointments around the clock, order and pay for prescriptions, receive results and view their medical notes. 

He said the migration was straightforward with 1,000 patients onboarded in a day without a single phone call to the practice and three months in, 3,500 patients are onboarded. 

Another challenge was managing telephone demand, particularly during surge times like before work and lunchtime, when staff are either unavailable or stretched. 

The practice introduced an AI-powered receptionist from Heron AI, which means when a patient calls, they can choose to wait for a staff member or enter the AI answering service.  

If they choose AI, the call is transcribed and summarised, and that summary is placed on a workflow board which reception staff can work through during quieter periods. 

The practice handles 5,000 calls per month, with five percent managed through Heron.  

The practice also uses Claude and Copilot across the entire team for tasks including drafting emails, writing policy, analysing budgets, taking meeting minutes, budget preparation and financial modelling. 

“That is the power of what we can do if we introduce these tools across our practices,” Hill said. 

"We have a lot of work to do and we are not perfect, but this is our approach to the problem.” 

Image: Doug Hill, practice owner at Broadway Medical Centre, speking at HiNZ’s Southern Connections event in Dunedin on July 29

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