Athenahealth Introduces Ambient Scribe & AI Copilot for EHR Users

The company has also introduced Sage, an AI-driven clinical copilot embedded within athenaOne, allowing clinicians to access patient information, surface key chart insights, and get quick answers about medical history.

Boston-based athenahealth has introduced a next-generation clinical encounter experience powered by ambient and generative artificial intelligence, designed to streamline documentation, decision-making, and clinical orders during patient visits.

At the core of this launch is athenaAmbient, a digital scribe that listens to patient conversations and automatically drafts diagnoses, prescriptions, and clinical notes. User testing for athenaAmbient will begin in February 2026, with broader testing of the full encounter experience continuing through the first half of the year.

The company confirmed that the new features will be included in standard software updates at no additional cost for customers.

Athenahealth describes this as a fundamental redesign of the electronic health record, transforming it from a data repository into an intelligent clinical assistant.

The AI tools, embedded across the athenaOne platform, are built to ease administrative burdens and enhance patient-centered care by offering context-aware insights, identifying care gaps, and speeding up reimbursement processes.

The company’s Advanced Intelligence Layer integrates data from EHRs, payers, and registries, enabling real-time inferences that support documentation and billing. Built on a cloud-native platform, athenahealth’s architecture allows for rapid deployment of AI features across its ecosystem.

The company has also introduced Sage, an AI-driven clinical copilot embedded within athenaOne, allowing clinicians to access patient information, surface key chart insights, and get quick answers about medical history.

“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.”

Stay tuned for more such updates on Digital Health News