OpenEvidence and Penn Medicine announced a global partnership on September 15, 2026 to deploy OpenEvidence’s AI-powered clinical decision-making platform across Penn Medicine’s more than 10,000 clinicians, with plans to extend the tools to low- and middle-income countries through the 25-year-old Botswana-UPenn Partnership (BUP). Travis Zack, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer of OpenEvidence, framed the collaboration around access: “OpenEvidence was founded on the belief that the best available medical evidence should reach every clinician, not only those working inside the world’s best resourced hospitals.”
Bringing Evidence-Based AI Into Penn’s Clinical Workflow
OpenEvidence describes itself as the most widely used medical AI and clinical decision-making tool among U.S. physicians, free for verified U.S. clinicians and used to surface personalized, evidence-based insights drawn from medical literature and a patient’s own electronic health record. At Penn Medicine, comprising the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Perelman School of Medicine, the platform will be integrated into existing programs including Penn Pathways clinical decision support and the health system’s electronic consultation initiatives across its seven hospitals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which together see roughly 500,000 emergency patients a year. Srinath Adusumalli, MD, MSHP, MBMI, Vice President and Chief Health Information Officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, tied the deployment to the system’s broader mission: “At Penn Medicine, our mission in pursuit of clinical excellence very much includes efforts to extend it to all areas where it can have the greatest impact.”
Extending the Partnership to Botswana
The global piece of the partnership runs through BUP, one of Africa’s longest-running academic health collaborations, which Penn has operated since 2001 with roughly 120 full-time clinical and research staff, backed by the University of Botswana and Botswana’s Ministry of Health. BUP has supported the training of Botswana’s clinicians and researchers, helped establish postgraduate medical education programs, and conducted research on HIV/AIDS, oncology, and population health.Farouk Dako, MD, MPH, Director of the Botswana-UPenn Partnership, said the AI tools being built for that setting won’t simply be exported from Philadelphia: “Building a customized set of tools in direct partnership with BUP clinicians and partners reflects a shared conviction that effective clinical AI will be shaped by local expertise
About Penn Medicine
Penn Medicine is a world leader in academic medicine, comprising the University of Pennsylvania Health System and the Perelman School of Medicine. Home to more than 49,000 team members, Penn Medicine treats nearly half a million emergency patients annually across seven hospitals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Through the Botswana-UPenn Partnership, Penn has worked in Botswana since 2001, employing approximately 120 full-time clinical and research staff to build sustainable healthcare capacity in sub-Saharan Africa. Learn more at pennmedicine.org.
About OpenEvidence
OpenEvidence is the most popular AI for doctors in the United States. According to independent studies, more American physicians use OpenEvidence than all other AI platforms combined. OpenEvidence is trusted by millions of verified U.S. healthcare professionals making high-stakes clinical decisions at the point of care, with evidence that is sourced, cited, and grounded in peer-reviewed medical literature. Founded with the mission to organize and expand the world’s collective medical knowledge, OpenEvidence is now used daily, on average, by the majority of physicians in the United States. OpenEvidence is free for all verified U.S. clinicians. Learn more at openevidence.com.
