On Tuesday, Oracle offered a sneak peek at its next-generation electronic health record which, more than two years since the company's acquisition of Cerner, it says was rebuilt "from the ground up" to offer the security and performance of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

WHY IT MATTERS
Unveiled at the Oracle Health Summit in Nashville, the new EHR, said to be ready for debut in 2025, is designed with artificial intelligence as a core component, the company says, with AI capabilities embedded "across the entire clinical workflow to automate processes, deliver insights at the point of care, and dramatically simplify appointment prep, documentation, and follow up for physicians and staff."

The company says the new EHR is also optimized to enable better information sharing between payers and providers and boost patient recruitment capabilities for clinical trials.

Helping health system clients improve their financial performance while closing gaps in care and succeeding with value-based care models is another stated goal of the new system.

User experience was a key goal, according to Oracle, which touts a more intuitive design that incorporates conversational search and voice-driven navigation, as well as multimodal search – all with the aim of helping clinicians more easily surface information about vitals, meds, notes and labs. AI-enabled summaries also allow for faster chart review.

The new EHR can be integrated with Oracle Health Command Center, which offers info on patient throughput, staffing and resource allocation, and is designed to incorporate the Oracle Health Clinical AI Agent for streamlined documentation and automated coding, the company says.

It can also embed the AI-enabled Oracle Health Data Intelligence, which gathers patient data from thousands of sources – clinical, claims, social determinants, pharmacy and more – for real-time insights to devise specific targeted care plans and personalized medicine based on patients' genetics.

THE LARGER TREND
Oracle has been upgrading its various healthcare technologies with new artificial intelligence capabilities since it finalized its $28 billion Cerner acquisition in June 2022.

Starting with the Oracle Clinical Digital Assistant tool a year ago, its first addition of generative AI to its EHR platforms, the company has since rolled out other automation tools to its suite of products along with new enhancements, such as prebuilt clinical-quality analytics and automated alerts for boosting reimbursements, to the Health Data Intelligence platform it built from Cerner's HealtheIntent platform.

This past month, the company unveiled enhancements to the Oracle Health Seamless Exchange, new improvements for its Oracle Health Ambulatory Referral Management and other advancements for its EHR product.

Oracle has been promising for some time to reinvent its core health IT offerings and move "beyond the EHR."

In a September blog post, Oracle Health and Life Sciences General Manager Seema Verma asserted "we must change the EHR, beyond bolting on temporary solutions." She pledged that, with the cloud company's "databases, cloud technology, cybersecurity, AI and enterprise solutions, we will bring more than an EHR point solution."

Most recently, the company announced this week its intent to apply for Qualified Health Information Network status, to help its EHR customers more easily take part in information sharing under the TEFCA nationwide interoperability framework.

ON THE RECORD
"One of today's most important and widely used healthcare technologies, the EHR, has not lived up to its promise," said Verma in a statement. "Most EHRs were built in the 90s and are ill-equipped to meet the complex security requirements and clinical needs of today's healthcare networks, practitioners, and patients. That is why we are completely reinventing the EHR.

"Oracle Health's next-generation EHR is not just a scribe or an assistant. It's the doctor's best resident, the administrator's most productive analyst, and the payer's most efficient partner in reviewing and authorizing treatment and payment," she said.

Mike Miliard is executive editor of Healthcare IT News
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.