Athenahealth Introduces AI-Enhanced Tools for Ambulatory Providers with AI-Native athenaOne Platform
Athenahealth is launching new artificial intelligence capabilities for ambulatory providers as part of a broader transformation toward an “AI-native” athenaOne platform. The company aims to deliver a “reimagined user experience” for physician practices, enhancing key functions such as interoperability, patient engagement, clinical documentation, and revenue cycle management, according to a statement this week.
Athenahealth provides EHR software, revenue cycle management, and patient engagement solutions to small and independent practices. The company is also expanding its suite of AI tools specifically for ambulatory providers.
The new AI-native features include AI-enhanced document services, interoperability tools, and intelligent clinical summaries. Additional planned upgrades focus on AI-driven clinical workflows, revenue cycle management, and patient engagement solutions.
Executives say the platform’s open architecture and cloud-native athenaOne design enable rapid deployment of AI capabilities.
“One of the great things about athena is that the technology was built the right way from the start,” said Bob Segert, chairman and CEO of athenahealth, in an interview with Fierce Healthcare. “We were built as an open ecosystem with a full API and a single code base, meaning all of our practices are on the same instance. That gives us tremendous leverage in how we invest R&D dollars and how quickly we can deliver impact. As soon as we release new code, it’s available to every practice automatically.”
Segert added, “That allows us to reach all 160,000-plus providers simultaneously when we launch new features. This technological foundation is truly unique and differentiates us in the market.”
He noted that advancements in computing power, quantum computing, and large language model training are accelerating the capabilities of AI, allowing tasks previously performed by humans to be automated. “This is a productivity tool and a market game-changer,” he said.
Athenahealth unveiled its AI features ahead of Epic’s annual User Group Meeting, where the EHR giant is expected to reveal its own AI initiatives, including rumors of an AI scribe. Oracle also recently launched its next-generation EHR with advanced AI and voice capabilities.
“It’s encouraging to see everyone embracing AI. This is not a fad; it’s essential,” Segert said. “What remains to be seen over the next six to 12 months is whether practices are using these tools effectively and generating real value. We’ll learn from that and continue to innovate rapidly.”
Segert expressed optimism about what he calls a “golden age of innovation” for healthcare technology. “We at athena want to be at the forefront, particularly in driving innovation for ambulatory care practices,” he noted.
Athenahealth is exploring AI-driven opportunities to integrate and contextualize data to enhance clinical decision-making. The company is piloting a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for its athenaOne platform, enabling communication between AI models and the EHR—a capability the company says is an industry first. This framework allows data from practices, hospitals, public health registries, payers, data aggregators, and other EHRs to be extracted and seamlessly incorporated into clinical workflows.
“This will allow any provider on athena, or any of our 500+ partner organizations connected via our APIs, to build their own AI agents,” said Bob Segert, CEO of athenahealth. “They can leverage agentic AI tied into the MCPs to access the data they need and run their own workflows.”
Athenahealth continues to advance interoperability initiatives, claiming to be the first healthcare IT company to implement the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) at scale, now connecting 100,000 provider customers to this government-backed data exchange network.
The platform already automates document processing using machine learning to read over a billion pages of faxes received by ambulatory practices, placing the extracted information directly into patient charts. Athenahealth is enhancing this process with AI to label clinical, imaging, and administrative documents as they are saved. The system can also extract key clinical data from faxes, store it as discrete elements, and make it searchable, trended, and reportable for quality programs. Segert noted the goal is to automate 50% to 70% of the manual administrative work practices currently handle.
Athenahealth’s ChartSync has been upgraded with AI to reconcile important information from national networks and external sources, including other practices, pharmacies, and hospitals.
The company is also alpha testing an AI-based assistant that leverages generative AI to search across clinical data, answer questions, and generate summaries for clinicians. Additional testing includes AI-generated summaries of patient documents, charts, and clinical events.
Recognizing the growing adoption of ambient AI tools, athenahealth introduced its own AI-powered clinical documentation tool last fall. The company also partners with ambient scribe vendors, giving providers a “choose-your-player” option for note-taking. Healthcare organizations can select from Abridge, Suki AI, or iScribe AI to best meet their workflow needs.
“These companies are our partners, offering unique value propositions in the market,” said Bob Segert, CEO of athenahealth. “They’ve been important for practices that don’t have direct access to this technology. That’s why we’ve integrated them into our SDK, allowing practices to leverage solutions across multiple vendors.”
Segert noted that as ambient, generative, and voice AI continue to evolve, opportunities extend beyond simple note-taking. AI can provide clinical “nudges” that highlight relevant information for physicians, enhancing decision-making at the point of care.
Athenahealth aims to deliver a comprehensive solution combining internally developed AI tools with offerings from partner vendors.
“Ambulatory practices don’t want to manage a long list of vendors,” Segert explained. “They’d rather have a solution that addresses 90% to 95% of their needs. Specialized vendors will continue to serve niche areas, but our goal is to provide an end-to-end platform that future-proofs the practices we support.”
He emphasized, “Our message to practices is, ‘Don’t worry about the complexity. We’re evaluating these technologies, building where we can, partnering where needed, and delivering a complete solution to help you thrive in this new AI-driven world.'”
These AI capabilities are part of a broader effort to implement an AI-native intelligence layer across the athenaOne platform.
“The intelligence layer allows us to package capabilities across interoperability, patient experience, clinical workflows, and revenue cycle management,” Segert said. “It encompasses our ambient AI solutions, data analytics, coding assistance, clinical decision support, and other agentic AI tools that leverage network data and large language models to deliver actionable insights to physicians at the point of care.”
While many EHR companies and AI startups focus on large health systems and academic medical centers, Segert highlighted that ambulatory and independent practices increasingly need automation and technology to reduce administrative burdens.
“The aging U.S. population, insufficient primary care physicians, declining Medicare reimbursement, inflationary pressures, and post-COVID burnout have created immense challenges for independent practices,” he said. “Our goal is to enable these practices to thrive in a difficult environment.”
Athenahealth is also expanding its reach into specialty care, developing purpose-built solutions for women’s health, urgent care, orthopedics, behavioral health, community health centers, and other ambulatory service sites. A specialty EHR for ambulatory service centers is expected to launch next year.
“These solutions are built on the same platform chassis, extended with specialty-specific capabilities and supported by dedicated implementation and customer success teams,” Segert said. “We currently have about 100 ASCs on our platform, and we anticipate significant growth with the upcoming ASC product launch.”
