Vendor AI Roundup: Enhanced EHR offerings designed to give practices an edge
Every week, more healthcare technology providers are adding artificial intelligence enhancements to their products to optimize healthcare practices and provider efficiency and personalize patient care. To that end, eClinicalWorks announced a series of artificial intelligence enhancements to its electronic health record products, including helow Genie – a fully integrated 24/7/365 contact center system, while athenahealth launched Ambient Notes in the athenaOne platform.
To promote experimentation, Athena designed Ambient Notes to give its vendor customers access to their choice of environmental documentation tools, such as Suki and iScribe, without long-term commitments, the company said in an announcement Thursday.
Meanwhile, new tools from SmartDX can identify evidence and then use generative AI to create compelling appeal letters that get them paid faster and more accurately.
Athena offers a choice of environmental tools
Available in limited quantities to select athenahealth customers, Ambient Notes will soon be available to all athenaOne customers in early 2025, the company said in a statement.
It is integrated into clinical workflows and provides flexibility and personalization for clinical note generation, supporting multiple AI-powered environment models simultaneously. Practices and physicians can seamlessly switch between models based on individual needs and preferences, Athena said.
Available models in the limited release are Suki AI, which uses generative AI to handle tedious administrative tasks including documentation, coding, and question answering, and supports 99 specialties, and iScribe AI from iScribeHealth, which uses ambient AI and a EHR integration aimed at reducing clicks doctors have to make while seeing patients.
With each model, clinicians can activate ambient listening, visit and have AI-generated notes placed directly into the patient so the clinician can review without leaving athenaOne.
The EHR vendor said additional models are expected to be added to Ambient Notes over time.
“Physicians are constantly trying to balance demanding schedules and documentation burdens with the desire to deliver the best patient care and be fully present during every visit,” said Paul Brient, Athena’s chief product officer, in a statement. “Our approach will give physicians the unique flexibility and freedom to choose from leading environmental models that best suit the way they practice, regardless of what their colleagues select.”
Dr. Lynn Joffe of DTC Family Health in Greenwood Village, Colorado, said Ambient Notes is having an impact on her practice.
“Ambient Notes already reduces our clinical documentation time, increasing engagement between provider and patient during encounters,” she said in a statement.
“As a busy practice with back-to-back appointments, we appreciate how easy it is to use without the need to switch between systems, and how quickly and efficiently the solution documents notes without compromising accuracy.”
Earlier this week, Affineon Health also announced that its clinical inbox technology, which can reduce the time healthcare providers spend reviewing lab results, communicating with patients and automatically processing inbox “noise,” is now available through the marketplace from athenahealth.
eCW tackles more practical automation
Helow Genie, announced at the eClinicalWorks and helow National Conference 2024 in Grapevine, Texas, uses natural language processing to answer common patient questions and manage appointments, referrals, prescriptions and more for healthcare providers.
Whenever they need support, they can access Genie via voice call, SMS or chatbot.
eClinicalWorks, the largest cloud-based outpatient EHR, said it also unveiled a suite of AI tools that can help healthcare providers transform their operations. These include AI for Revenue Cycle Management, which the company says converts and automatically generates documents and provides comprehensive information search capabilities, and value-based care scorecards powered by the eClinicalWorks CIPHER tool, which processes information from payers and EHRs through CommonWell and Carequality.
The scorecards measure progress toward achieving VBC goals and bring together quality, risk, and coding metrics along with healthcare costs in one panel.
In addition, Sunoh.ai’s medical writer now supports Portuguese and Spanish.
“We believe that by working together and leveraging these breakthrough AI advancements, we can improve patient outcomes, reduce physician burnout and transform the patient experience,” said Girish Navani, CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks , in a statement.
SmarterDx launches SmarterDenials
With the help of AI, SmarterDX, a hospital revenue technology company, said it has added more weapons in the fight against payer denials.
The company said 15% of all claims are initially denied, and because denials have risen 20% over the past five years, hospitals are spending more than $20 billion annually trying to reverse them.
SmarterDenials can help hospitals generate stronger clinical appeal letters by using AI – also used by the SmarterPrebill platform – to identify needed evidence in the patient record and create comprehensive appeal letters with case-specific clinical evidence and coding references.
According to the company, it can address complex denials such as DRG downgrades and service level disputes when hospitals upload rejected claims.
Michael Gao, CEO and co-founder of SmarterDx, said in a statement Monday that the tool can help hospitals “better respond to the increasing tide of denials and secure the reimbursement they deserve” so they can focus on patient care.
“This couldn’t have happened at a better time,” added Dr. Cam Patterson, CEO of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, added. “At UAMS, we have seen how increasing denials negatively impact our bottom line, which ultimately impacts our ability to invest more in patient care. With AI we can create strong calls in a fraction of the time, which is a game-changer.”
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.