Changelog

Heidi desktop app (optimized for telehealth)

The Heidi desktop app has been in beta for the past few months and thanks to all of your feedback, it’s now ready for general release!

Purpose-built for telehealth sessions, advantages of the desktop app include:

• Headphones support: Compatible with both Bluetooth and wired headsets, enabling smooth recording with your preferred headset.
• Reduced interruptions: System-level audio capture means other applications won’t interfere with your sessions.
• Superior stability: The Desktop app is the most stable way for clinicians who rely heavily on telehealth to utilize Heidi. 

Any sessions you undertake on the desktop app sync seamlessly with other versions of Heidi, such as the mobile app and Chrome extension (both still in beta), and of course, the original browser version of Heidi.

Download Heidi on your desktop today. 

Instructions, setup, and troubleshooting for the desktop app is available in the help centre

Patient and clinician name preferences

As clinicians ourselves, we understand just how often you refer to patients throughout an average day's documentation. 

We all have our own preferences around this. Some use the term “patient,” others like “Mrs. Smith,” and some of us simply use the patient's first name. You also likely refer to yourself in most notes, with statements like, “Dr. John to submit a referral for an MRI.”

To make Heidi’s notes sound just like you, we added options to specify exactly how you want to refer to patients and yourself. To set patient and clinician name preferences:

1. Access Memory via the sidebar

2. Enter your preferred terms under Language & spelling

Note: You can choose a single term, such as “client” or “patient.” Or give Heidi instructions like “Title + Lastname” and we will infer the correct terminology via session information. 

3. Click Save changes (top right)

Heidi will now use your preferred patient and clinician name preferences throughout all notes and documents.

Faster editing with real-time streaming

Whether you’re generating a note, creating a document, asking Heidi a question, or producing an AI-assisted template, Heidi’s output now streams in real-time.

Real-time streaming enhances editing efficiency and documentation productivity compared to viewing the entire output after it’s generated. You can consider any edits required as the output generates, then quickly jump in and make the changes once it’s finished.

Patient profiles and session linking

As more clinicians make Heidi the centerpiece of their daily workflows, we’re hearing that you want an easy way to manage patient information across multiple sessions.

With patient profiles and session linking, you can now create, update, and organize a patient’s information under a single customizable patient identifier. You might think of this as a patient “file” within Heidi.

Patient profiles and linked sessions make it easy to group, access, and edit previous sessions. It also streamlines the process of asking Heidi to utilize historical patient data in notes for follow-up sessions or document generation.

Here’s how it works:

1. Create a patient profile by navigating to a session, clicking the session name box, and choosing a patient identifier

2. Use the link button to link sessions from your list to the patient profile (new sessions can also be directly added to a patient profile)

3. Click a date within a patient’s profile to view and open previous sessions

Adding past visits to a current session

When conducting follow-up sessions or writing a report/treatment summary, you may find it helpful to bring in context from a patient’s previous visits. Linked sessions make this process much easier, as previous sessions can be stored under a patient’s profile.

To add context from previous visits:

1. Start a new session
2. Locate and copy previous notes
3. Paste copied notes into the Context tab
4. Start transcription 

As you proceed, Heidi incorporates the contextual notes you added, distinguishing between past and present content.

Please note: We’re working on features to generate a pre-chart summary and automatically incorporate past session details into notes or documents.  

Read our Help Centre article for a full overview of patient profiles and session linking, along with tips for maximizing contextual notes with Heidi’s templates.

Split screen

You can now split your screen within Heidi to view and work with tabs side-by-side. For example, you might like Context open on the left and Transcript on the right. Or, you could have a session Note open next to a Referral letter.

To configure the split screen for any of your tabs, simply right-click on a tab you want open and select the left or right option. Click and drag the center separating line between tabs to adjust the size of each window. 

Start sessions faster

We’ve done away with the old start screen and replaced it with…nothing.

All the options from the previous start screen are available via the top menu bar in the Sessions screen (like Voice, Brain hemisphere, and Language. So now, to start a session, change any settings if needed, then hit Start Transcribing. 

Quickly delete empty sessions

There are lots of reasons you might end up with empty sessions stored in your list. Rather than deleting them individually, you can now simply press the Tidy up button at the bottom of your sessions list and Heidi will automatically delete any empty sessions.

Sessions are only considered empty if they contain no information whatsoever. So you can rest assured that you won’t lose any important patient info when using this feature.

Updated mobile app (+ offline mode) in beta

Heidi’s mobile app has been in open beta for a couple of months now, specifically designed to make your Heidi experience smoother, portable, and more reliable than ever.

We’ve heard that many of you struggle with patchy internet conditions. Therefore, the standout feature of this release is offline mode.

Now, you can start and stop your sessions even without internet connectivity. Everything will be safely saved, and your notes will sync as soon as you’re back online.

Single-session multilingual support

After feedback from our bilingual users, we’ve added a Multilingual (Beta) option to Language settings.

With Multilingual set as the input language, clinicians and patients are free to switch between any of the 58 supported languages during a session and Heidi will seamlessly process everything that’s said.

You can then choose the most appropriate output language, depending on whether your note or document is going on the EHR, to another clinician, or to the patient or a family member. 

Snippets (macros, Heidi style)

Snippets lets you create shortcuts for frequently used blocks of text, so you can edit outputs faster and more efficiently.

To set up a Snippet:

• Go to Memory
• Click New snippet
• Name your snippet and insert the content you want it to generate
• Click Create Snippet

You can also highlight a block of text in any output and save it as a Snippet.

With a Snippet created, simply type our magic character “/” followed by your snippet name and hit enter. The shortcut will instantly expand into your saved text block!

You can add as many Snippets as you like in Memory.

Heidi Labs

Heidi Labs is our experimental feature set where we introduce exciting new features for early feedback from our users.

Joining Heidi labs is an excellent opportunity for you to experience the latest development firsthand. By participating, you’ll not only get a sneak peek at what’s coming next, but also have a direct impact on shaping the future of our platform. 

To join Heidi Labs:

1. Navigate to Preferences (in the sidebar) 
2. Scroll to Heidi Labs at the bottom of the page

Switch the toggle on to Sign up for experimental features

Memory is a new set of preferences that define how you would like your note to appear stylistically. This is part of a suite of work we’re embarking on to make your Heidi sound more like you.

These sit separately to your templates, and are operative en masse on all of your sessions, remembering how you like dates formatted, permanent spelling corrections, and more. A kind of memory, if you will…

On launch, there are 3 options in your Memory:

1. Date - Select your preferred format for listing dates (eg., YYYY/MM/DD or MM/DD/YYYY)
2. Language & spelling - Set input and output language and make UK or US English the default spelling choice
3. Replace - Customize your word library with commonly misspelled words, preferred abbreviations, and word substitutions, and Heidi will automatically use these in your outputs 

Bulk text edits (find and replace)

If you notice a misspelled word during your session, or an abbreviation or word substitution you would like to make, just highlight the relevant text with your mouse and click ‘Find & replace.’

In the menu that appears you can specify the replacement. Then, tell Heidi whether you would like to apply the change to all instances within your current output, across all outputs in your session, or for all future occurrences (by adding it to your word library in Memory settings).

Please see the Help Centre article on Memory for a full overview of personalized memory settings.

Shortcuts

Use new keyboard shortcuts to pursue productivity singularity by shaving milliseconds off your workflow.

See the full list by clicking Shortcuts in the bottom-left of the sidebar (or do it the right way and just press S to reveal the menu).

So far, we’ve created a total of 24 shortcuts for:

• Managing sessions
• General tasks (like copy, paste, undo)
• Navigating around Heidi
• Toggling settings
• Formatting in notes and documents

More coming soon, so keep an eye on the Shortcuts menu for new additions.

Rich text editor (bold & italics)

We understand that sometimes it’s the small touches that make a perfect note. So we’ve made it easy to add rich text formatting, like bold and italics.

To add formatting, highlight the segment of text you want to change and you’ll see your formatting options hover above. 

Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcuts you’re likely already familiar with from your favorite text editors—ctrl+B for bold and ctrl+I for italics.

Wrap text in your templates with the notations ** and _ to make permanent bolding and italicizing (respectively) in your notes.

Finally, we added new copy states so you can choose what formatting gets carried over when you copy your note. You may copy as plain text (required for some EHRs), copy with formatting (without lists), or copy with formatting (with lists).

Instant feedback system

We’ve heard that on occasion (rarely, we hope), Heidi can be a little temperamental.

This happens because we’re always tinkering on the back end to achieve note perfection and a blissful clinical documentation experience.

However, outside of traditional support channels, there has never been a quick way for you to tell us when Heidi is going right—or when there is room for improvement.

Now, with our integrated feedback system, you can use a simple smiley face rating scale to tell us how satisfied you are with your note, letter, or document (bonus points if you also add a short text description).

We’ll use this additional feedback data to make Heidi more accurate and efficient, so you can save even more time on writing notes. 

Templates are blueprints that Heidi uses to define your preferred structure and style for notes and documents, so that they sound just like you.  

So far, outside of Teams, template creation has been a solo activity. But now, with the release of the Template Community, you can interact with fellow clinicians from around the world to share, use, and improve field-tested Heidi templates.

Grab ‘n’ go templates

We’ve heard for a long time that it takes a little massaging and fine-tuning to get your templates to work exactly as you want them to. What if, instead, you could grab a working template from another user? A grab ‘n’ go, if you will.

Instead of creating a template from scratch, you can now access a public library of specialty-appropriate templates that have been created by other clinicians using Heidi.

We think it works for everybody:

1. If you’re a new Heidi user, skip the initial learning curve and pick up a template.
2. If you want to create your own template, but not from scratch, fine-tune a Community template.
3. If you’re an experienced Heidi user, tattoo your name on your most powerful templates and receive the quiet admiration of your colleagues (we see you Dr. David Canes).

You can use Community templates for as long as you like. You are also welcome to save and modify your own copy to suit your exact practice needs and preferences.

Share template love with the Community

If you’ve created a template you are particularly proud of, you may upload it to the Community. Love makes the world go ‘round.

Template creators' names are listed on uploaded templates, along with how many times each template has been used.

Using Community templates 

To browse Community templates, click Community in your sidebar.

In the Template Community, you can search templates based on:

• Title
• Creator
• Description

Results can then be filtered and sorted by: 

• Specialty
• Region
• Category
• Popularity
• Recency

Once you find the custom template that works for you, click into the template, then press Use template to add it to your personal library. You can now edit the template (if desired) and add it to your Favorites.

Please see our Help Centre article on Getting started with Community templates for more detailed instructions.

New sidebar

The old sidebar has been on our kill list for a while. You’ll find it is now far easier to navigate to key pages, find past sessions, and access customer support. 

We’ve also pulled upcoming sessions from your active EHR integrations into a unified, tabbed Sessions view.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Individual users and organizations now have the option of enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) on Heidi.

MFA enhances the security of your Heidi account by requiring an additional verification step beyond your password (such as a verification code sent via email).

You can check and adjust your MFA settings in Account.

Last week, we released Teams. Today, we’ve improved how teams and groups collaborate. Multiple users can now generate documents from a single patient encounter.

We’ve heard it isn’t always feasible for one clinician to singlehandedly manage a patient’s documentation burden end-to-end.

You can now delegate post-encounter documentation by vesting in your Team Administrator the ability to filter for another clinician’s session view, then create / edit / delete documents from any selected session.

This is suitable for settings where several clinical and non-clinical staff may be required to document their interaction with a patient for the same episode of care.

As an Administrator with this feature enabled:

• Navigate to the ‘User’ filter in your sidebar (denoted by a stethoscope icon)
• Select a team member
• View the core note, shown in a disabled state
• Click ‘Create Document’, and proceed as you normally would

Heidi will maintain multi-directional syncing across all instances. Admin A’s document edits to Clincian B’s sessions will reflect in every user with view privileges for that session.

Administrators with this capability are unable to edit / delete the original note / document produced from the encounter; only downstream derivative documents. 

This is the start of a suite of collaboration features that will make Heidi more multiplayer for teams of all sizes, from local clinics, to large multi-disciplinary hospital systems.

Note: This feature is only available to teams on the Clinic tier, and for a limited number of teams as part of a phased rollout.

Brain

Brain is a new setting that allows users to choose the type of thinking that processes a patient encounter. This can improve the quality of document generation by aligning the output with clinician preferences.

The default Brain hemisphere can be changed in ‘Settings’ or by pressing ‘Remember’ when the setting dropdown menu is open.

Each time a user toggles between Left and Right Brain, the note will regenerate.

Cliniko integration

For Clinic-level subscribers, Heidi now integrates with Cliniko (practice management software for clinics and allied health professionals).

To connect Heidi and Cliniko accounts, users must login to Heidi, click ‘Integrations,’ choose Cliniko from the dropdown box, then follow the instructions.

With Heidi and Cliniko, connected users can:

• Access Cliniko patient demographic and appointment information within Heidi
• Send a note from Heidi to Cliniko (stored as a treatment note for that patient)

Humane quota messaging

We heard you. It's really annoying to be confronted with a blocking screen when your patients are at your doorstep. So we've broken from standard software patterns to devise a suite of quota informers suited to time-poor clinicians.

Every time you consume a Pro action, we'll let you know in a neat, little toast message, so that there are no surprises. We've also improved our iconography across the platform for improved clarity.

If you, as a free user, exhaust your monthly quota for Pro actions, your are now given the option to delay the prompt to upgrade for up to 24 hours. You pick how long you need, and we'll honour that.

When the delay period expires, we'll guide you to unhooking a Pro template from your default settings, so that you're not left wondering why Heidi has permanently planted a paywall (we have not!).

Teams enables groups of clinicians or entire clinics to work more collaboratively within Heidi.

A team is managed by one administrator who provides a central point of coordination for:

• Adding and removing team members
• Organizing shared billing
• Managing shared templates

At present, Teams is only available to Pro and Clinic level subscribers.

Simple, unified billing

Team billing centralizes all billing tasks under one administrative control. This means there is a single invoice for the entire team, regardless of the number of members.

Admins can invite members to join via email. Upon inviting a new user, they are prompted to sign up for an account, and incurred to the team as a Pro Member. When an existing user with a free plan is added, they will be upgraded to Pro.

The only change for a Pro user joining a team is that their billing will now be managed by the Admin.

A Team is billed on a regular monthly or annual cycle, as chosen by the Admin.

Shared organizational templates

For Teams on the Clinic plan, templates can now be configured and managed at the organization-level. This helps to achieve consistency, compliance, and quality in documentation across a clinic or organization.

Admins can create, edit, and share templates with their team. 

When an Admin shares a template (by changing its visibility settings), it is pinned to the ‘Favorites’ section of the ‘My Templates’ screen for all team members.

When an Admin edits a template, changes are synced to all instances of that template across the team.

Team Members can use shared templates, but can’t make permanent changes to the original.

If a Team Member renders an edit to a shared template, Heidi automatically creates a local duplicate to customize as desired. Members can also create their own templates without sharing them with others, just as before.

Referral program improvements

We’ve made our Referral Program substantially simpler and easier to use.

When a referral link is used, the referrer will receive:

• $10 USD per sign-up*
• $40 USD (additional to the $10) if a referee becomes a paid user of any tier

Users who sign up with a referral link get a 30-day free trial on a paid subscription tier.

Referral Program payouts are made via PayPal, with currency converted from USD on withdrawal.

* Referral sign-ups must have at least 10 sessions greater than 1 minute in the first 30 days. Heidi may conduct additional authenticity checks before distributing funds to rule out instances of fraudulent activities related to a user account.