Health Tech Giants Collaborate to Streamline Medical Record Sharing

Datavant and athenahealth have announced a groundbreaking partnership aimed at revolutionizing the way medical records are requested and shared across healthcare organizations. This collaboration promises to significantly reduce administrative burdens for providers while enhancing data accessibility and security.

Automating Medical Record Requests at Scale

The core of this partnership is the development of an integrated solution that will embed Datavant's clinical data access technology and managed release of information services directly into athenahealth's cloud-based athenaOne platform. This integration will allow athenahealth's network of 170,000 ambulatory care providers to access high-quality patient records seamlessly within their existing workflow.

Kyle Armbrester, CEO of Datavant, emphasized the uniqueness of this collaboration, stating, "This is a true co-development partnership, not just a joint go-to-market exercise. We're bringing Datavant's technology and managed services into athenahealth's existing workflow, so practices can automate ROI from intake to delivery."

The new offering, which is currently in development, will be rolled out in phases in close partnership with customers. It aims to address a wide range of medical record request scenarios, including those from patients, public health agencies, life insurance companies, researchers, and other healthcare practices.

Enhancing Efficiency and Compliance

The integrated service promises to deliver an end-to-end solution covering request intake, authorization validation, compliance review, secure delivery, and billing. By automating these processes, the partnership aims to increase operational efficiency for practices and accelerate the delivery of medical records.

Michael Palantoni, chief strategy and corporate development officer at athenahealth, highlighted the potential benefits: "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 further explained the value proposition for providers: "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."

Advancing Interoperability in Healthcare

This partnership aligns with broader industry efforts to improve data interoperability and patient access to health information. Both Datavant and athenahealth have committed to the CMS Aligned Network Framework to accelerate interoperability. In July, athenahealth reached a significant milestone with over 100,000 provider customers now connected to the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA).

As the healthcare industry continues to evolve, collaborations like this between Datavant and athenahealth are poised to play a crucial role in shaping the future of health data exchange and improving overall patient care.