What You Should Know:
– 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.
Athenahealth Unveils AI-Native Clinical Encounter to Redefine the Future of Physician-Centered Care
“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 an era where technology fades into the background. It listens, understands, and assists in real time—so clinicians can focus on what truly matters: the patient.”
Athenahealth’s forthcoming AI-native clinical encounter, set for user testing in the first half of 2026, marks a fundamental shift in the design of electronic health records. Moving beyond record keeping and billing, it delivers an interactive, adaptive experience designed to optimize efficiency and elevate clinician satisfaction. The innovation builds on a growing suite of AI-driven tools already in use, uniting them into a seamless, intuitive experience that adapts to each clinician’s workflow.
At the heart of this transformation is athenaAmbient, an ambient digital scribe embedded directly into athenaOne. It automatically drafts notes, diagnoses, and prescriptions during patient visits, while prompting clinicians with suggestions and reminders to close care gaps. Entering testing in February 2026, athenaAmbient will be rolled out to customers at no additional cost as part of routine updates, ensuring equitable access to this next-generation tool.
Complementing this is Sage, an AI-powered clinical copilot currently available in limited release. Integrated into athenaOne, Sage serves as a digital assistant capable of understanding the full patient chart and instantly answering clinical questions about a patient’s history—transforming how clinicians interact with data during visits.
Together, these AI-native capabilities are redefining the clinical encounter by streamlining chart review, enhancing information retrieval, and automating documentation. The transformation aims to:
- Reduce time spent reviewing patient history: Patient summaries present concise, problem-oriented overviews, while “Changes since last visit” and “What to know today” surface critical updates and clinical decision support from both the patient’s chart and external sources via ChartSync, athenahealth’s interoperability engine.
- Simplify clinical information search: With Sage embedded into athenaOne, clinicians can access meaningful, patient-specific insights at any moment—before or during a visit.
- Dramatically cut documentation and data entry: athenaAmbient generates draft notes, diagnoses, orders, and prescriptions from natural conversation—supporting both in-person and virtual visits. The system also identifies missing documentation or diagnoses to ensure completeness and compliance.
Following each encounter, clinicians can finalize and close notes within seconds. athenaAmbient ensures that diagnoses, prescriptions, and orders are ready for review and signature, enabling faster documentation, improved coding accuracy, accelerated reimbursement, and significantly reduced after-hours “pajama time.”
Crucially, these insights are not confined to athenaOne. They integrate data from the wider healthcare ecosystem—EHRs, payers, registries, and other sources—through athenahealth’s cloud-native platform, enabling continuous innovation, seamless updates, and a unified AI-driven experience that puts clinicians and patients at the center of care.
