AI platforms designed to address clinical inquiries are gaining traction by helping healthcare professionals navigate extensive data and access pertinent information quickly. Evidence suggests that these technologies are indeed fulfilling their potential, with increasing adoption rates among practitioners. However, insights into which groups of clinicians are most engaged with these tools and their usage patterns have remained largely unexplored—until now.
A recent research paper published in JAMA provides clarity on this matter, revealing a significant rise in the utilization of OpenEvidence over the past two years, particularly among trainees and early-career doctors.
Anupam Jena, M.D., Ph.D., a prominent figure in healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School, highlighted the study's main findings: “A remarkable number of physicians are leveraging AI for their clinical duties, often in fields where they lack extensive expertise,” Jena noted in a press statement.
The research team from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital investigated the adoption of OpenEvidence, the leading AI-based clinical information tool in the United States. They analyzed an impressive dataset comprising 271 million queries from 952,008 clinicians between January 1, 2024, and June 30, 2026, including 556,200 physicians.
Although OpenEvidence did not sponsor the research, three of the authors are employees of the company. The data utilized for the analysis was anonymized to maintain privacy.
The findings detail the demographics of OpenEvidence users, revealing a significant surge in monthly active participants—from merely 355 in January 2024 to an astonishing 703,265 by June 2026. The average number of queries per active user escalated from 18 to 39.5 over the same timeframe. Additionally, the proportion of clinicians returning to query the platform from one month to the next increased substantially from around 70% in early 2024 to 90% by 2026. Notably, nurse practitioners and physician assistants submitted a higher volume of queries per user compared to their physician counterparts.
Experience in the field emerged as the most significant factor influencing platform usage: clinicians with fewer than ten years of experience averaged 43.4 queries per month, in contrast to 29.9 from those with two decades or more of practice. Among physicians specifically, nearly two-thirds (61.8%) of queries were generated by those within ten years of graduation from medical school. Resident and fellowship members accounted for 27.2% of the queries, while veteran physicians with over 20 years of experience contributed 16.5%. Oncologists and hematologists were the most frequent users, followed by physicians practicing internal and family medicine. Conversely, usage was less pronounced in fields focused on procedural and diagnostic work, such as ophthalmology, radiology, and orthopedics.
