BOSTON — athenahealth has announced a sweeping upgrade to its cloud-based athenaOne platform, introducing “intelligent interoperability” designed to help physician practices exchange data seamlessly, surface critical insights at the point of care, and reduce administrative burdens. The initiative marks the company’s next step in creating an AI-native platform that it says will reshape how practices engage patients, coordinate care, and manage revenue cycles.
According to athenahealth, the new capabilities will move the healthcare industry beyond basic data exchange toward providing clinicians with timely, actionable information in context. By embedding generative AI into the athenaOne platform, the company aims to deliver relevant patient insights directly into clinical workflows, improving decision-making and freeing up providers to focus more on patient care.
CEO Bob Segert said rapid advances in AI now make it possible to solve problems that once seemed out of reach and to “bring back the human side of healthcare.” He added that the upgrades are intended not only to address current administrative challenges but also to “future-proof” practices for years to come.
The expansion builds on athenahealth’s established strengths in interoperability, including open architecture, real-time data exchange, and longitudinal patient records. The company recently became the first to implement the federal TEFCA framework across all eligible customers, a milestone recognized by the White House. Chief product officer Paul Brient said athenahealth is “breaking down the walled gardens” that have restricted independent practices for more than a decade, using AI to make interoperability a reality.
Among the advancements is an industry-first Model Context Protocol (MCP) server piloted on athenaOne platform APIs, which facilitates standardized communication between AI models and diverse data sources, from hospitals and public health registries to payers and other electronic health record systems. This integration is designed to allow relevant insights to be identified, extracted, and placed directly into clinical workflows in real time.
The company is also enhancing existing AI-native features, such as Document Services, which processes over a billion faxed pages each year and can now automatically label and extract discrete clinical data; and ChartSync, which reconciles nearly all incoming medication data from external sources without manual intervention. In addition, new capabilities like Intelligent Summaries and Chart Assist are in testing, aimed at giving clinicians AI-powered overviews of patient information and the ability to query medical histories across multiple records and events.
Athenahealth says these developments represent a new standard for electronic health record systems, transforming them from passive data repositories into intelligent partners that can support better clinical outcomes. Additional features and workflow enhancements will roll out over the coming months as part of the updated athenaOne experience.
