Cleveland Clinic Deploys Luminai AI to Automate Referral Processing

Cleveland Clinic taps AI platform for administrative automation

Cleveland Clinic has partnered with Luminai to deploy AI-driven automation across its administrative operations, beginning with the processing of external patient referrals. The collaboration aims to reduce manual administrative tasks while improving operational efficiency across the 6,725-bed health system.

The initial deployment focuses on a persistent healthcare challenge: many patient referrals still arrive by fax and require manual sorting, prioritization, and transcription into electronic medical records. Luminai's AI system will identify incoming referral documents, interpret their clinical context, match patients to appropriate order types, and transcribe information directly into the EMR for clinical follow-up.

According to details first reported by Cleveland Clinic, this automation is designed to connect patients to appropriate care more quickly by eliminating time-consuming manual handoffs.

Why it matters

Administrative burden remains a significant drain on healthcare resources, with staff spending hours on tasks like referral processing that don't directly involve patient care. By automating workflows that involve unstructured data and complex decision-making, health systems can reallocate clinical and operational staff time toward activities that improve patient experience and outcomes. The approach also demonstrates how AI can enhance existing healthcare IT infrastructure without requiring wholesale system replacements.

Embedded engineering approach

Unlike traditional software deployments that rely on standardized configurations, Luminai is placing its engineering team directly alongside Cleveland Clinic's clinical and operational staff. This embedded approach allows the automation workflows to be adapted to the organization's specific operational realities rather than forcing staff to conform to generic software processes.

"Automation only delivers value when it reflects the realities of clinical and operational work," said Rohit Chandra, Chief Digital Officer at Cleveland Clinic. The collaboration is structured to shorten the timeline between initial deployment and measurable operational impact.

The platform is designed to learn and incorporate organization-specific context over time, which should accelerate the deployment of subsequent automation use cases across the enterprise.

Broader operational applications

While referral processing serves as the initial focus, Cleveland Clinic and Luminai expect the learnings to inform automation of similar processes throughout the organization. The operational pattern being addressed—high volumes of unstructured documentation, multiple manual handoffs, and time-sensitive decision-making—appears across numerous administrative functions in health systems.

Kesava Kirupa Dinakaran, Founder and CEO of Luminai, noted that healthcare organizations can use AI to transform operations while continuing to rely on their existing systems of record. Luminai has raised $60 million to date from investors including General Catalyst, Peak XV Partners, Define Ventures, Y Combinator, Moxxie Ventures, and Craft Ventures.

Cleveland Clinic, which employs more than 83,000 people worldwide including over 6,600 physicians and researchers, recorded 15.9 million outpatient encounters in 2025. The health system operates 23 hospitals and 300 outpatient facilities across multiple states and countries.

This announcement was made by Cleveland Clinic and Luminai on September 9, 2026.