Health tech companies Datavant and athenahealth are collaborating to automate medical record requests for providers at scale and simplify data sharing across organizations.
The companies note that the tie-up is a co-development partnership to develop an offering that will integrate Datavant's clinical data access technology and managed release of information services directly into athenahealth's cloud-based athenaOne solution. Through the partnership, athenahealth's 170,000 ambulatory care providers will have secure access to high-quality patient records without leaving their workflow, the companies said.
"This is a true co-development partnership, not just a joint go-to-market exercise," Kyle Armbrester, CEO of Datavant, told Fierce Healthcare as part of a first look at the partnership. "Together, we’re building a fully integrated release of information solution embedded directly in the athenaOne platform. We’re bringing Datavant’s technology and managed services into athenahealth’s existing workflow, so practices can automate ROI from intake to delivery."
"It’s our combined reach that also makes this partnership both different and exciting," Armbrester noted.
Datavant offers a data exchange network that connects more than 80,000 hospitals and clinics, 75% of the 100 largest health systems and an ecosystem of 350-plus real-world data partners. Its platform connects datasets across electronic health records, claims, specialty pharmacy, registries, imaging, labs and social determinants of health, enabling more than 60 million healthcare records to move between thousands of organizations, according to the company.
Athenahealth provides electronic health records software, revenue cycle management and patient engagement solutions to small and independent provider practices, reaching nearly 170,000 ambulatory providers. The company is also building out a suite of AI tools for ambulatory providers.
Together, the companies say they already process 3.6 million record requests annually.
"We are partnering with athenahealth to fix one of healthcare’s most persistent challenges: the inability to securely and easily move information where and when it’s needed," Armbrester said. "We’re combining Datavant’s unique release of information technology with athenahealth’s reach and reliability across its huge nationwide network and cloud-native platform."
The companies said the new offering is in development and will be delivered through a phased rollout in close partnership with customers.
Participation in the offering will be voluntary, the companies said. Athenahealth customers will have the option to automate and digitize medical record requests across a broad range of scenarios and request types, including those from patients, public health agencies, life insurance companies, researchers, and other healthcare practices to support continuity of care.
Getting access to patients' medical records has historically been a manual, fragmented process.
Previous industry efforts to automate health information access have focused on limited or select use cases, Datavant and athenahealth executives say. The new collaboration aims to combine the scale of a major EHR with Datavant's end-to-end ROI infrastructure to deliver a "comprehensive, full-service and privacy-first solution, agnostic as to exchange purpose or request type," the companies said in a press release.
A more streamlined approach not only increases operational efficiency for practices but also accelerates the delivery of medical records, resulting in a faster, more seamless experience for patients and clinicians.
The integrated service will offer an end-to-end solution covering request intake, authorization validation, compliance review, secure delivery and billing.
"It’s purpose-built to automate and digitize a broad range of requests for clinical data, including more complex scenarios such as legal, life insurance, or continuity of care," Armbrester told Fierce Healthcare. "AI-assisted quality controls make sure that the right records are delivered to the right requesters quickly and securely, while our managed services team supports the requests that can’t be automated yet. The result is faster, more accurate processes that reduce administrative burden and improve the experience for providers and requesters alike."
"Health data exchange has historically been a burdensome, manual administrative process for healthcare practices," said Michael Palantoni, chief strategy and corporate development officer at athenahealth, in a statement. "By working with Datavant, we plan to deliver a technology-driven solution that automates and simplifies this complexity—reducing administrative workload, increasing compliance, and improving satisfaction for record requestors."
Armbrester attests that the value to providers is two-fold: time and trust. "By automating record request workflows within athenaOne, we’re reducing the administrative complexity, improving turnaround times and freeing staff up to focus on patient care. Equally important, providers can trust that every record request is handled with precision and integrity, and supported by Datavant’s built-in privacy and security safeguards. Providers will have visibility into the request lifecycle and can be confident that only the minimum necessary data is shared," he said.
Armbrester, who took on the CEO role at Datavant a year ago, spent seven years at athenahealth, including three years as its chief product officer, and is deeply familiar with its tech approach.
“I saw firsthand the commitment they bring to simplifying healthcare through technology and empowering providers to focus on care rather than administrative tasks. That same commitment aligns perfectly with our mission at Datavant, to make health data secure, accessible, and actionable. This partnership feels like a natural next step to build a modern infrastructure for record requests that works for everyone,” he said.
The partnership also aligns with the companies’ participation in a Trump administration-led effort to improve patients’ access to data. Datavant and athenahealth both committed to the CMS Aligned Network Framework to accelerate interoperability. In July, athenahealth said it hit a key interoperability milestone with more than 100,000 provider customers now connected to the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA).