Heidi, an AI-powered clinical documentation platform, has formally launched in South Africa after more than 15,000 local clinicians adopted the software organically, the Melbourne-founded company said on Thursday.
Heidi says its platform now supports roughly 1.5 million consultations a month in South Africa, with weekly active use growing 500 per cent year on year. The formal launch crystallises what has largely been clinician-led uptake, with doctors introducing the platform into their own practices before it spread into larger healthcare organisations.
Integrations with local practice systems
Intercare Group, a South African primary healthcare provider, is piloting Heidi across its network, and Fourways Veterinary Hospital has deployed it within its clinical teams. Heidi has also integrated with Practice Perfect and HealthFocus, two commonly used South African practice management systems, lowering the onboarding friction that typically slows software adoption in primary care.
The platform sits inside a clinician’s existing workflow and automates documentation, including SOAP notes produced from recorded consultations. It supports multiple languages and a limited offline mode for low-connectivity environments, both of which matter for rural South African clinics.
A workforce gap driving demand
The rollout arrives as South Africa faces a projected shortfall of about 97,000 health workers by 2030, according to national workforce modelling cited by the company. Administrative overhead is a well-documented contributor to clinician burnout in public hospitals, emergency departments, and rural clinics, where staffing pressures are most acute.
Adoption in South Africa has been almost entirely clinician-led. Doctors are using it in real clinical settings, seeing the impact, and recommending it to peers.
Dr Tom Kelly, chief executive and co-founder, Heidi
Heidi has appointed Dr Calvin Howard to lead its South African operations, with Dr Michelle Yuan heading local customer success. Both are medical doctors by training.
Global footprint
Heidi was founded in Melbourne in 2019 by Dr Tom Kelly, Waleed Mussa, and Yu Liu, and has raised approximately US$96.6 million from investors including Point72 Private Investments, Blackbird, Headline, Latitude (Phoenix Court’s growth fund), Possible Ventures, and Archangel. The platform now supports more than 2.5 million consultations a week in 110 languages across 190 countries, according to the company.
Alongside its scribe product, Heidi operates Evidence, a medical research lookup tool aimed at point-of-care clinical decisions, and Comms, a call-handling feature for coordinating patient communications across a practice.
The company says it complies with the UK National Health Service’s data security standards, HIPAA, the EU GDPR, Australia’s Privacy Principles, and South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act, and holds SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certifications.
Heidi’s expansion follows rising AI investment across African digital infrastructure, including the recent launch of Africa’s first AI experience centre by Liquid C2 and Google Cloud in Johannesburg.
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