athenahealth’s AI-native Clinical Encounter Transforms the EHR into a Real-Time Clinical Intelligence Partner

Opt-in experience leverages AI, including new native Ambient technology, to reimagine the clinical workflow around the clinician

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--athenahealth, a leading provider of network-enabled software and services for healthcare practices and systems nationwide, today introduced its AI-native clinical encounter, a reimagined experience that anticipates clinicians’ needs, surfaces relevant insights at the moment of care, and drafts documentation, orders, and diagnoses based on the clinician-patient conversation. This new AI-native experience will transform the EHR from a system of record into a collaborative assistant, reducing the cognitive load for clinicians and allowing them to focus on delivering the best possible care to their patients.

"The future of healthcare technology isn’t about making doctors work the way the system works – it's about making the system work the way doctors work,” said Bob Segert, chairman and CEO of athenahealth. "With our new AI-native clinical encounter, we're ushering in a new era where technology fades into the background. It listens to the visit, understands the context, and engages in real time – so clinicians can focus on what truly matters: the patient."

The new AI-native clinical encounter, which will begin user testing in the first half of 2026, is the result of a fundamental reimagining of the EHR, moving away from systems designed for record keeping and billing, to a more interactive experience built to maximize efficiency and clinician satisfaction. It represents the culmination of an array of AI-native capabilities, most of which are already being used by customers to deliver a user experience that is more intuitive and aligned to the way individual clinicians prefer to work than anything else available in the market today.

At the core of the new AI-native encounter sits athenaAmbient, a new ambient digital scribe built inside athenaOne that automates draft notes, diagnoses, and prescriptions. During the encounter, athenaAmbient provides suggestions and helpful information to clinicians to ensure care gaps are addressed, and encounters are documented comprehensively. athenaAmbient, entering user testing in February 2026, will be delivered to athenahealth customers as part of its routine update processes and will be made available to customers at no additional cost – ensuring all clinicians have access to this important new technology.

Beyond the encounter and available today in limited release, athenahealth’s new AI-driven clinical copilot, Sage, introduces a digital assistant embedded into athenaOne that clinicians can use to obtain information about their patient. Sage “understands” the full patient chart and can answer clinical questions about an individual patient’s medical history.

Collectively, the AI capabilities embedded across AI-native athenaOne are reshaping the patient visit, reducing administrative burden and elevating patient-centered care. This transformation will:

• Reduce the time providers spend to get up to speed on a patient:
  • Patient summaries provide a concise, problem-oriented snapshot of the patient’s health history, so clinicians don’t need to hunt through the chart.
  • “Changes since last visit” presents important events and results in a chronological format - sourced from the chart and external sources via ChartSync, athenahealth’s existing intelligent interoperability engine, to help clinicians review key medical developments since the patient was last seen.
  • “What to know today” offers a concise summary of the reason for the patient’s visit, with clinical decision support drawn from the patient’s chart.
• Simplify the way clinicians search for information in the chart:
  • Sage, athenaOne’s new native assistant, will be available to clinicians anytime, anywhere, ensuring meaningful information is presented quickly to support pre-visit preparation, or discussions happening during the visit.
• Dramatically reduce documentation and data entry requirements:
  • athenaAmbient, athenaOne’s new digital scribe, generates a draft note, diagnoses, orders, and prescriptions extracted from conversations with the patient, supporting both in person and telehealth visits. Clinicians can focus on the patient during the visit and quickly review and finalize notes as they close out the encounter.
  • Clinical inferences surface documentation, diagnosis, and care gaps based on athenaOne chart data to ensure the encounter documentation is complete, compliant, and supportive of the billing process.

Upon completion of the visit, clinicians will be able to close the encounter with ease. athenaAmbient’s draft encounter note is ready seconds after the visit, ensuring all visit documentation is complete, compliant and ready for coding. Diagnoses, prescriptions, and orders are entered and ready to be signed. As a result, encounters are signed and closed in a timely manner, accelerating reimbursement for practices and reducing pajama time for clinicians.

“With the next generation of our solution, athenahealth’s AI capabilities are deeply embedded across the clinical experience, rather than spread across isolated tasks, thus enabling cohesive, intelligent workflows that redefine efficiency and care delivery,” said Chad Dodd, vice president of product management at athenahealth. “Building on years of interoperability leadership, athenahealth has connected millions of clinical data points that, together with its Advanced Intelligence Layer, form the foundation of athenaOne’s AI and have enabled this incredible transformation of the clinical encounter. Now, clinicians will be provided with meaningful, actionable insights that are delivered simply and meaningfully at the point of care, allowing them to focus more on the patient.”

Every step of the new AI-native clinical encounter is made possible by deep investment in athenahealth’s Advanced Intelligence Layer, a powerful suite of AI tools that draw insights from a robust data network. These insights aren't just powered by athenaOne data but rather pull and synthesize information from the broader ecosystem of EHRs, payers, registries, and other sources. athenaOne’s cloud-native platform also plays a key role in allowing the company to quickly iterate on AI features and deploy updates across the platform.

Today’s announcements are part of athenahealth’s rapid development and deployment of AI-native capabilities across its entire suite of clinical, patient engagement, and practice and revenue cycle products. To learn more, please visit here.

About athenahealth
Since 1997, athenahealth has been curing complexity for ambulatory healthcare practices and the patients they serve, empowering them to deliver the best possible care and business outcomes through innovative clinical, financial, and patient engagement solutions. athenahealth connects practices, health systems, payers, partners and patients to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all. Learn more at www.athenahealth.com.