At Thrive 2026, athenahealth’s annual customer conference, the company announced expanded capabilities for Sage™, athenaOne®’s AI assistant, bringing relevant information and guidance directly into more workflows, streamlining and reducing administrative burden. This year’s Thrive also marks the first time athenahealth hosted an onsite forward-deployed engineering experience, bringing clinicians and practice staff together with engineers and designers to identify challenges and develop product enhancements in real time.
Expanding Sage to make everyday work easier
By making important information and context easier to find, understand, and act on, Sage helps clinicians and practice staff navigate complex tasks without leaving the workflows they already use.
“The amount of information in a patient’s chart continues to increase, which is great in theory, but if the information isn’t easily accessible, it isn’t helpful for clinicians,” said Paul Brient, chief product and operations officer at athenahealth. “Sage is designed to make finding, interpreting, and taking action on data quick, easy, and delightful. As we expand our AI assistant across athenaOne, we’re creating a more intelligent, connected experience. Our goal is to make the EHR into the best and most informed medical assistant a clinician has ever had so that clinicians and staff can focus on what matters most: caring for patients.”
The AI assistant is now available in:
- Patient chart: helps clinicians quickly review patient information, answer questions, and complete tasks within their workflows. To date, more than 110,000 chart queries have been processed.
“There’s so much information in a patient’s chart, and Sage helps me quickly make sense of what matters most. It helps me walk into a patient visit prepared and ready to ask meaningful questions. Instead of spending time scrolling through a chart, I can focus on connecting with my patients, and they can feel that I know them,” said Dr. Lynn Joffe, physician and owner of DTC Family Health.
- Payment posting: now in beta testing, provides billing staff with real-time answers and tailored guidance about claim payment activity directly within posting workflows. The ability to open support tickets from the conversation is planned as a future enhancement.
- VBC analytics: now in alpha testing, helps practices use conversational language to understand value-based care (VBC) performance, analyze patient populations, identify patients eligible for care management programs or outreach campaigns, and enroll them.
- Customer support: available now, helps athenahealth customers find answers and access support through a single conversation, drawing on trusted information and helping customers open support tickets when additional assistance is needed.
- Clinical inbox: coming soon as part of the reimagined AI-native clinical inbox, will help clinicians answer questions, understand patient context, and take action on incoming tasks. The new inbox will help clinicians group and prioritize tasks, while Sage will provide relevant information and recommended next steps to help complete them, reducing time spent managing the inbox while keeping clinicians in control of their decisions.
Taking customer co-development to the next level at Thrive
Customer collaboration continues to be central to how athenahealth develops technology. In 2026, athenahealth conducted nearly 500 alpha and beta programs, with more than 10,000 customers participating and nearly 250 customer ideas implemented. At Thrive, athenahealth took that approach a step further through forward-deployed engineering. Rather than simply gathering feedback for future consideration, customers had the opportunity to work side by side with athenahealth engineering teams to shape and build enhancements to athenaOne. By bringing clinicians and practice staff directly into the development process, athenahealth is helping build trust and create technology grounded in real-world workflows. Customer input also helps shape the product experience and future development priorities.
“I was just dazzled, to be very honest. To be able to share an idea, see that coded in real time, and have it show up in front of our eyes as a group is an incredibly powerful experience,” said Dr. Katherine (Dr. Katy) Noble, pediatrician and founder of Sound Beach Pediatrics. “It was very impactful. It was very inspiring. It made me think, ‘Oh my gosh, imagine if we had more of these kinds of conversations. Imagine what we could do together.”
About athenahealth
Since 1997, athenahealth has been curing complexity for ambulatory healthcare practices and the patients they serve, empowering them to deliver the best possible care and business outcomes through innovative clinical, financial, and patient engagement solutions. athenahealth connects practices, health systems, payers, partners, and patients to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all. Learn more at athenahealth.com.
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