Boston-based Athenahealth will offer Microsoft Dragon Copilot as a new ambient documentation option within its EHR, athenaOne, in the first half of 2026.
The partnership adds Dragon Copilot to athenaOne’s Ambient Notes, a fully integrated AI tool that creates clinical notes from patient visits. AthenaOne is the only EHR that allows individual clinicians within a practice to choose the ambient model they prefer under a single contract, the company said in a news release.
“Ambient technology is transforming how care is documented and delivered, freeing clinicians to focus more on their patients,” said Pal Brient, chief product and operations officer for athenahealth. “At athenahealth, we champion an open ecosystem – easy, flexible and choice-driven. We are excited to collaborate with Microsoft Dragon Copilot to bring our customers a powerful new option.”
More than 170,000 clinicians across nearly 50 specialties currently use Ambient Notes. Athenahealth said Dragon Copilot, which is already deployed at over 650 healthcare organizations, will be directly embedded into athenaOne for all users. Clinicians will then be able to activate ambient listening during patient visits and receive AI-generated clinical note drafts within seconds.
Earlier this year, athenahealth became the first healthcare IT company to achieve TEFCA interoperability and then introduced new AI-enabled interoperability capabilities to the platform in August. The company aims to move ambulatory care into “intelligent interoperability and is working toward an AI-native athenaOne experience.
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