The admin hour no one pays for. Give it back.
Every clinic has it — the unbillable hour at the end of the day spent issuing outcome measures, chasing the ones that aren't done, scoring them, and filing them against each claim. CIE automates that loop. The measure still gets captured, scored, and filed — you just stop doing it by hand.
Built by Design By Zen, an NZ AI lab. Evidence, not confidence.
The hour
Ask any clinic owner where the time goes, and you'll hear the same thing: not the treatment, the paperwork around the treatment.
Outcome measures are reasonable to ask for. But collecting them properly is real work, and none of it is billable.
It's the hour that turns a full caseload into a late evening, the task that gets rushed or skipped when the day runs long.
Multiply it across every clinician and every claim, and the admin quietly becomes one of the largest uncosted line items in the practice.
Where the hour goes
The outcome-measure workflow is four jobs, each small, each repeated all day:
Issue. The right measure has to reach the right patient at the right point in their care — not a generic clipboard at reception.
Chase. Half of them don't come back without a reminder. Chasing completion is its own quiet job.
Score. Each returned measure has to be scored and the trajectory read — by hand, that's minutes per patient that add up fast.
File. Then it has to be recorded against the right claim, in a form that holds up if anyone asks.
The more successful your PROMs get the bigger the compounding admin becomes over time.
None of it is clinical. All of it is necessary. That's the definition of unbillable admin.
How CIE gives it back
CIE is PROMs-native, so it runs the whole loop instead of you:
Capture. The right patient-reported measure goes to the patient automatically, at the right point, in their own voice — with reminders handled.
Score. Responses are scored the moment they arrive and the recovery trajectory is tracked over time — visible at a glance, not reconstructed from a spreadsheet.
File.
Each result lands as a governed, time-stamped record against the claim — capture, score, and audit trail in one pass.
The work still happens. You just stop being the one doing it.
The honest framing — recovered time, not new revenue
We're careful about what we promise. CIE doesn't make your clinic new money — it gives back time you're already spending and not billing for.
That's the real economics of it: the hour you lose every evening, recovered.
We could dress that up as a revenue claim; we won't, because it's a number we couldn't stand behind, and the whole point of what we build is that the claim matches the evidence. Recovered unbillable time is a claim we can stand behind.
CIE does come with Practice ROI analytical modeling.
CIE vs the scribe
AI scribes transcribe the conversation. CIE proves the outcome.
AI scribe | CIE |
|---|---|
Documentation | Compliance + outcome proof |
A record of what was said | A record of how the patient is doing, over time |
Turns the visit into notes | Turns recovery into measured, patient-reported evidence |
A scribe writes down the session. CIE shows whether the patient got better — which is what ACC-funded care is ultimately accountable for.
Not a scribe
An AI scribe saves you from typing the note. Useful — but it's one slice of the day.
The outcome-measure loop — issue, chase, score, file — sits outside the consult, and a transcription tool doesn't touch it.
CIE automates the whole workflow and produces a governed outcome record at the end, not just a tidy note.
Scribes save minutes in the room; CIE gives back the hour after it.
Still governed
Recovering time doesn't mean cutting corners.
Every record CIE files carries a consent state and a time-stamped audit trail, so the outcome behind a claim can be shown to be exactly what it says.
You get the hour back and a cleaner, more defensible record than the manual process produced. How CIE stays auditable →
Proof
CIE runs in clinical deployment at Node-1, Nelson — governed, stable, and in pilot clinical use since January 2026.
We describe it as deployed and governed, not as clinically proven: the independent proof ladder is work in progress, and we won't claim a result we haven't earned.
FAQ
How much admin time does collecting outcome measures actually take?
It varies by caseload, but the work is consistent: issuing the measure, chasing completion, scoring the result, and filing it against the claim — repeated for every patient, none of it billable. CIE automates that loop so the measure is still captured and filed without the manual time.
Does CIE increase clinic revenue? No — and we won't claim it does. CIE recovers unbillable administrative time: the hours you already spend on outcome-measure admin and don't bill for. The honest value is time given back, not new income.
How is this different from an AI scribe? A scribe transcribes the consultation note. The outcome-measure workflow — issuing, chasing, scoring, filing — happens outside the consult, and a scribe doesn't address it. CIE automates that whole loop and produces a governed outcome record.
Is the recovered record still audit-ready? Yes. Every result CIE file carries a consent state and a time-stamped audit trail, so it's more defensible than a hand-filed record, not less.
What is CIE? CIE (Clinical Intelligence Ecosystem) is Design By Zen's governed clinical AI. It captures, scores, and files patient-reported recovery as auditable evidence — automating the outcome-measure workflow that otherwise falls on clinic staff as unbillable admin.
See where the hour goes — and how to get it back. Book a walkthrough — we'll show how PROMs capture, scoring, and ACC-ready filing fit your caseload.. [Book a clinic walkthrough]
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