Oracle Health is 'all about execution' in 2025 with next-gen EHR, says Dr. David Feinberg

Oracle Health launched its next-generation EHR late last year and David Feinberg, MD, chair of Oracle Health, joined the "Becker's Healthcare Podcast" to share insights into the next aiteration of the platform.

The next-generation EHR includes cloud and AI features making it easy to set up and intuitive to run. Oracle designed the system with voice command instead of drop-down screens so clinicians can speak to it and find what they need.

"Let me describe it: If I were a doc in an outpatient clinic going to see my next patient, I would say, 'Hey Oracle, tell me about my next patient'," said Dr. Feinberg. "I could be seeing 30 patients that day, so I may not remember everything about this next one. Oracle uses AI to create a summary of that patient, and the data comes not just from the electronic health record, but it comes from the health information exchanges. It comes from all your records, including Epic, Athena, as well as what we would historically call Cerner, we now call Oracle Health."

The data includes medical information but also draws on more than 2,000 public sources of data to provide a full picture of the patients' situation. The platform can tell physicians whether the patient comes from an area that was recently hit by a fire, or if they live in a food desert.

"Think of it as your best medical student preparing you to see the patient," said Dr. Feinberg. "They tell you everything you need to know about that patient in summary."

Clinicians can use ambient listening and integrate conversations from the visit into the EHR. Before patients leave the office, they have a summary of the visit and next action steps. It can also be helpful during the visit. For example, a patient is in for a post-pneumonia visit and the physician can ask about how they're feeling. Then, if the physician forgets what happened last time the patient's metformin was increased, they could ask the Oracle platform: "Tell me what happened to the patient's blood sugar the last time I increased metformin and show me the hemoglobin A1C levels."

Physicians and patients then receive the information in real time to make treatment decisions.

When the visit is over, the platform will develop billing, coding, referrals and follow-up appointments.

"The entire workflow has been done in a better way than before we had these tools because then I couldn't do that summary unless I had two hours to really figure everything out," said Dr. Feinberg. "In the room, I would be typing instead of looking at you. Then I'd be hunting for information instead of just asking for it, and I don't have any pajama time at home because [the technology] wrote the note for me. That's the new EHR we have launched."

The new EHR is generally available and nurse practitioners as well as physicians are using it. What's the company's big focus for this year?

"We have a customer base that has been patient with us as we haven't really executed," said Dr. Feinberg. "I'm really talking about Cerner, did not execute fast enough. We became Oracle. I think we have literally leapfrogged the competition. We have executed and hit on every timeline and now in 2025 it is time for us to deliver and delight our customer base."

When Oracle can deliver an elite product to customers, Dr. Feinberg said care improves and customers become successful. Then, both partners grow.

"For me, this year is all about execution," said Dr. Feinberg. "Thanks to Oracle, I think we have really delivered the best product and now it's time to roll it out. That is first to me, and then the second [big focus] is we have to be humble."

Moving forward with humility will help the company tackle two big challenges that could have disastrous consequences. Dr. Feinberg said the two things making him nervous are cybersecurity and risks involved with artificial intelligence. He recommended health systems move to the cloud to improve security and go slow with AI.

"At times, AI is potentially harmful if we use biased data, and we're not clear on what the models were trained on, and we use the models in a way that could be inappropriate or exacerbate bias that's in the data," said Dr. Feinberg. "I don't want to be on your podcast in five years talking about how we messed up and went too fast with AI. Cybersecurity and the ethical or thoughtful implementation of AI are things that we really have to be vigilant about and it's constantly changing."

The company has made progress with its platform, but Dr. Feinberg sees the need for much bigger shifts in U.S. healthcare to really optimize its potential. Oracle Health has the largest global EHR market share and other countries are leveraging the platform in more upstream ways.

"While I am really optimistic about the tech platform we're building, I'm not optimistic about U.S. healthcare because I think we've moved too slowly toward fee for outcomes or fee for value as opposed to fee for service," said Dr. Feinberg. "I just got back from Qatar a few months ago. Qatar uses our electronic health record to determine pediatric weights, how much kids weigh in different regions of Qatar, and based on that, they either approve a gymnasium or, if weights aren't good, they don't approve a fast food restaurant."

Dr. Feinberg also said Oracle is upgrading Sweden's EHR to a more commercial one. In the process, the company had to make upgrades so the new EHR would provide physicians the option to prescribe a particular service: opera. Swedish physicians prescribe opera tickets for patients who were stressed, and Oracle was able to accommodate.

"Those kinds of social interventions you just don't see as much in U.S. healthcare," said Dr. Feinberg. "I'm optimistic about the work we're doing around making a data secure, open, connected platform. But, specifically in the U.S., you still see a lot of places that aren't moving upstream fast enough."

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