Modernization at Tribal health centers requires respect, partnership, and understanding of Tribal sovereignty. In the latest episode of the athenahealth podcast, we're joined by Tony Lucero, a Tribal health consultant and enrolled member of Isleta Pueblo to discuss how Tribal health centers are redefining what modernization means when driven by Tribal priorities, not external timelines, and how community health leaders are strengthening financial sustainability, supporting staff through workforce challenges, and leveraging innovation in ways that preserve culture and build trust with their communities.

We're joined by Dr. Nele Jessel, Chief Medical Officer, to go in-depth on the results from the 2026 Physician Sentiment Survey -- our annual survey of 1,000+ physicians nationwide across specialties, practice sizes, and locations -- and to look at how the features in the Spring 2026 Release address the hopes, concerns, and perspectives we're hearing from survey respondents and users of athenaOne.

To learn more about the Physician Sentiment Survey, please visit the athenaInstitute page at athenahealth.com.

As part of the Spring 2026 Release Walk-through webinar this week, we welcomed Nora Iluri, who leads the teams building and updating revenue cycle workflows in athenaOne. In the latest athenahealth podcast, we share our conversation with her about the ways we’re reducing your revenue cycle tasks and using AI to get you paid faster and more comprehensively.

The Spring 2026 Release comes to athenaOne from March 18-20. Learn more about the Spring 2026 Release by visiting the Release Centers on the Success Community.

The latest episode of the athenahealth podcast looks at the vital work being done in rural communities, where healthcare providers must overcome unique geographic, economic, and infrastructure challenges to deliver comprehensive care – with the help of athenaOne solutions. Get tips for engaging patients with limited internet connectivity, using incentive programs and athenaOne tools to drive clinical efficiency, and preparing reluctant clinicians for AI adoption while maintaining the personal touch that's essential to building trust in tight-knit communities.

As of November, over one-third of eligible appointments on athenaOne saw patients using Enhanced Self Check-in – a significant jump even from the 23% we were seeing at the end of 2024. Enhanced Self Check-in supports practices with the ability to capture important patient information in advance of an encounter, including expanded automated check-in messaging, insurance card capture, collecting online patient payments, patient screeners, and medications review. In the latest episode of the athenahealth podcast, we're joined by Virginia Urology to hear more about how they adopted Enhanced Self Check-in.

Healthcare stands at a crossroads. While AI breakthroughs and innovation dominate the headlines, complexity remains a persistent challenge for too many practices nationwide. Navigating this ever-evolving landscape can feel overwhelming, but at athenahealth, we view complexity not as a barrier, but as an invitation to lead.

In the latest episode of the athenahealth podcast, we introduce you to the athenaInstitute, athenahealth’s platform for championing ideas and actions that help cure complexity in ambulatory care. Through timely insights, expert collaboration, and a spotlight on industry-shaping innovation, the athenaInstitute aims to accelerate meaningful progress for practices and the patients they serve.

Learn more by navigating to https://www.athenahealth.com/athenainstitute. 

In an interview recorded at Thrive Summit in November, we explore how innovative clinicians are leveraging athenaOne and artificial intelligence tools to overcome geographic barriers while maintaining the personal connection that's so vital to effective patient care. Dr. Allen Gee is a neurologist practicing in Wyoming, where he's one of only eight full-time neurologists serving a state of over 500,000 residents across hundreds of miles.

With his focus on "neurohealth" — treating the whole person rather than just symptoms — Dr. Gee shares his insights on using athenaOne's tools for patient engagement, how AI is helping him focus on patients rather than screens, and why he believes the future of healthcare lies in the collaboration between human intelligence and artificial intelligence.

Since its launch in 2023, Appointment Schedule has gradually replaced the legacy scheduling workflow in athenaOne. Appointment Schedule offers more in-depth visibility to a provider or department’s schedule as well as open or booked slots, and it allows users to view the calendar and start booking without first selecting a patient. As of July, over 90% of athenaOne practices who scheduled an appointment did so with the new Appointment Schedule workflow. By the end of 2025, two-thirds of organizations will have fully migrated to the new Appointment Schedule workflow.

Want some tips and tricks on transitioning to the new Appointment Schedule workflow from an organization that has been with us throughout the journey? Check out an interview recorded at Thrive Summit in Nashville in early November.

This episode is brought to you by Pretty Good AI: https://marketplace.athenahealth.com/product/pretty-good-ai 

If you were at Thrive in early November, you were in the room when we introduced the AI-native clinical encounter, a reimagined experience that anticipates clinicians’ needs, surfaces relevant insights at the moment of care, and drafts documentation, orders, and diagnoses based on the clinician-patient conversation. 

Listen to a conversation with Dr. Vik Mali, a pediatrician from the suburbs of Detroit, about his experience as an early tester of these AI features -- including Sage, a digital assistant embedded into athenaOne that clinicians can use to obtain information about their patient.

The Fall 2025 Release talks place from November 12-14. If you missed the recent Fall 2025 Release Walk-through webinar, we're publishing a conversation with Chief Medical Officer Dr. Nele Jessel that we featured in that webinar, a conversation that focused on the various ways we're using AI to transform the clinician experience in athenaOne, both with new features in the Fall 2025 Release and in the months to come.