Empathia AI vs OneChart (2026)
Two small ambient scribes serving the same North American market from different angles. Empathia is built deliberately for two jurisdictions at once, claiming compliance with the United States and Canadian regimes, which is a harder problem than it sounds because the two frameworks make different demands about where data lives and who may hold it. OneChart is a small Canadian team whose notable feature is the breadth of clinical settings it covers for its size. For a practice that operates across the border or a clinic that expects to, the dual market design is worth something concrete. For everyone else these are close enough that the decision comes down to the pilot. Neither publishes a study, an accuracy figure or a security attestation, so the diligence burden sits entirely with the buyer in both cases.
- It was built for two markets at once and states compliance in both, which is the harder engineering and contracting problem rather than a marketing claim.
- For a practice operating across the border, or a vendor selling into both, one product with both regimes addressed removes a real procurement obstacle.
- Dual market design usually forces clearer data handling decisions than a single market product needs to make.
- The breadth of clinical settings it reaches is unusual for its size, which suggests the note generation is genuinely general rather than tuned to one visit type.
- A small team focused on coverage rather than adjacent products keeps the surface narrow, and a narrow surface is easier to evaluate and to govern.
- For a clinic that wants documentation and nothing else, an unbundled product avoids paying for agents it will not switch on.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Empathia AI and OneChart are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | Empathia AI | OneChart |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Ambient Scribes | Ambient Scribes |
| Founded | Not recorded | 2024 |
| Headquarters | Not recorded | Hamilton, Ontario, Canada |
| Website | empathia.ai | onechart.ai |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Each vendor in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph opens the AI Health Index profile of the vendor: what the product is, who buys it and what it does.
Empathia AI is a general purpose ambient scribe built deliberately for two markets at once, claiming compliance with HIPAA in the United States and PHIPA and PIPEDA in Canada with tailored EMR integrations for each, and holding preferred vendor status across multiple Canadian provincial programs and Canada Health Infoway.
Source: AI Health Index, August 2026
OneChart is an ambient AI scribe from a small Canadian seed stage team in Hamilton, Ontario. The scribe listens during the encounter, generates structured SOAP, DAP, BIRP and specialty notes, and returns them for clinician review and approval before export. It also captures voice based patient intake before the visit, extracts data from prior records, referrals and lab reports, and auto fills forms, referral letters, sick notes and prior authorizations.
Source: AI Health Index, August 2026
Questions buyers ask
How do Empathia AI and OneChart handle patient data?
For Empathia AI, retention is configurable per artifact and stated with precision: encounter recordings from immediate deletion after scribing to a maximum of 365 days, transcripts on the same range, generated notes and summaries from one day to seven years, and user profile data removed within 30 days of a subscription ending.
With OneChart, the exposure is wider than a scribe's in three directions, and they are unlikely to be governed identically, so a single retention answer would not cover all three. The product ingests prior charts, laboratory results, imaging and referrals to build summaries, so it holds historical record content that was never part of the encounter being documented. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified August 4, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which settings and specialties do Empathia AI and OneChart cover?
In Empathia AI's case, specialty pages span psychiatry, pediatrics, oncology with staging and multi modal treatment terminology, ENT including procedure documentation, allergy and immunotherapy, emergency with discharge summaries, and chronic disease with multi problem visits.
For OneChart, inpatient work covers admission checklists, vitals, medication reconciliation and shift handoff summaries. Home care documents visits for later integration with the record, and emergency response covers patient care reports. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified August 4, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
What evidence is published for Empathia AI and OneChart?
Empathia states it is a preferred vendor across multiple Canadian provincial programs and with the national health infrastructure agency.
In OneChart's case, the named organization claims need care, and the vendor's own wording is narrower than it first appears. Its site displays a logo wall under the heading that it is trusted by clinicians and healthcare staff from Kaiser Permanente, the University of British Columbia, McMaster University, Canada Basketball and others. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified August 4, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How much do Empathia AI and OneChart leave to the clinician?
For Empathia AI, notes are finalized by the clinician before use, and live note preview lets them see output forming during the encounter rather than only afterward.
With OneChart, coding output is framed as suggestion rather than assignment, and is delivered with supporting context and confidence levels so the clinician has something to evaluate rather than a bare code to accept. The company states in its own materials that control stays with the physician. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified August 4, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Ambient Scribes page.
Both are small vendors and the diligence burden sits accordingly with the buyer: neither publishes a study, controlled evaluation, accuracy benchmark or named customer deployment, and neither publishes a security attestation, retention schedule or subprocessor list. For any dual market claim, check which entity holds the data and where processing occurs, since asserting compliance with two regimes is not the same as demonstrating data residency in each. Neither publishes an accent, dialect or language performance analysis, which matters in bilingual practice.