palmERpalmER vs Heidi.
Heidi starts with a note template. palmER starts with your entire ED shift.
Build fewer templates. Finish more of your shift.
Heidi starts with a note template. palmER starts with your entire ED shift.
palmER gives you dedicated tools for the work emergency clinicians repeat all night: write the MDM, prepare the consult, review the chart, and generate discharge documents. Keep your active workups and clinical questions in the same workspace. Paste the chart, and palmER builds the MDM with the clinical reasoning included.
Try every palmER tool free for 30 days. No credit card. No automatic billing.
At a glance
| palmER | Heidi | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Emergency medicine and urgent care | Multiple specialties, including ED |
| Ambient documentation | Drafts the HPI and Physical Exam automatically | Generates structured notes from the patient encounter |
| The MDM | A structured MDM: differential, risk, data reviewed, disposition | Not described in Heidi's public materials |
| The rest of the shift | Clinical questions, consult calls, discharge papers (work and school notes), chart review, palmEM reference | Templates and general clinical assistance |
| Your EMR | Works alongside any EMR; no integration required | EHR delivery depends on plan and system |
| Getting started | 30-day full-access trial, no credit card | Free plan and 14-day Clinician trial advertised |
Keeping Up With Several Patients
In the ED, an encounter stays open while other patients need care. Check how easily you can return to a chart, see its current state, and finish the next task.
palmER was built for that work. Ambient Scribe drafts the HPI and Physical Exam. It also picks up the results, plans, consults, reassessments, and disposition you discuss and adds them to your MDM. Edit them anytime in the MDM section. Patient tracking helps you return to each encounter after interruptions.
Customize the Note, Then Finish the Next Task
palmER lets you customize the structure, style, and detail of your documentation through Documentation Preferences.
Templates help organize the note. palmER also handles the tasks that follow: drafting the MDM, answering a question about a patient, preparing a consult call, or writing a school note.
palmER puts your MDM, active patients, consult scripts, and chart review in one workspace built for emergency medicine.
A Structured ED MDM in Seconds
palmER writes a structured MDM: the differential you considered, the risk you weighed, the data you reviewed, and why you chose the disposition. It is written so it reads like your reasoning, not a summary of a conversation.
Heidi's public product materials do not describe a dedicated step for writing the MDM.
palmER also reviews charts for missing documentation before you sign, helps with consultant communication, generates the documents your patients need for discharge, and includes the palmEM emergency medicine reference.
Transcript Retention: Check Your Account Settings
palmER never stores ambient audio. Transcripts, drafts, edits, and questions automatically delete within 24 hours. palmER does not store encounter audio, and nothing you enter is used to train AI models.
Heidi's help center distinguishes real-time sessions, whose transcripts it says are not stored, from uploaded consultation recordings, where users can consent to transcript storage and set retention in their account. Its safety page says transcripts and notes are stored as needed, audio recordings are not stored, and customer data is not used to train its AI. A single deletion deadline for every session type and artifact is not published.
Check retention settings for transcripts, generated notes, prompts, and questions as well as audio. Those settings determine what remains outside the chart and could be produced in litigation.
We cover those questions in more detail in What Does Your AI Scribe Save?.
Document the care that deserves its own note
From critical care and procedures to sepsis, palmER spots documentation needs and drafts the supporting notes, so your chart reflects the care you delivered. Review the draft, add your details, and finish the documentation without starting another note from scratch.
Put palmER to work on your next shift
Your shift should not depend on assembling the right prompts and templates. palmER gives you dedicated tools for the MDM, consult call, chart review, and discharge paperwork, with clinical answers and patient tracking in the same workspace.
Try that workflow on your next shift. Every tool is free for 30 days, then $199/month for unlimited access. No credit card to start and no automatic billing.
Start your 30-day free trial. Your next patient is a good place to start.
See the full palmER vs Heidi comparison for features, pricing, and sources.
Frequently asked questions
- Is palmER a good Heidi alternative?
- Yes. palmER was built for emergency and urgent care clinicians who want help with their entire shift: EM-native MDM, multiple active workups, clinical answers, consult preparation, chart review, and discharge documents. You can start yourself, use it beside any EMR, and try every tool free for 30 days.
- How does palmER compare on MDM?
- Paste your chart and palmER builds a structured ED MDM, including clinical reasoning, differential, data reviewed, risk, and disposition. You do not need to write out the reasoning first. palmER also uses the results, plans, consults, reassessments, and disposition you discuss during ambient scribing, and updates an existing MDM when you discuss something new. A dedicated ED MDM workflow was not established in the Heidi sources reviewed. With palmER, chart review, clinical answers, consult preparation, and discharge tools are included in the same subscription.
- What does Heidi cost?
- Heidi lists Free at $0, Clinician at $110 per user/month when billed yearly, and Teams with custom pricing. Clinician offers a 14-day trial. palmER is $199/month for unlimited access to every tool. Approved students and residents pay $49/month after verification. The full-access 30-day trial requires no credit card and ends without automatic billing.
- What does Heidi retain after an encounter?
- Heidi's Safety page says it stores transcripts and notes as long as needed and does not save audio recordings. Its Help Center says real-time audio transcripts are not stored, while uploaded consultation recordings can be consented to transcript storage for later review and the duration is set in account settings. The Safety page says Heidi does not use customer data to train its AI; no fixed note or question retention window was found. palmER never stores encounter audio, automatically deletes patient data within 24 hours, and uses AI providers under zero-retention agreements.
From the palmER clinical team — built by board-certified emergency physicians.
See the full comparison