As the Oracle Health Conference gets underway in Las Vegas this week, the company made some new announcements around its Cerner electronic health record, including a big one about a new artificial intelligence integration.

WHY IT MATTERS
The new Oracle Clinical Digital Assistant technology is meant to help providers use generative AI and voice commands to reduce manual work and documentation burden, the company says, enabling them to focus more on patient care.

The generative AI behind Oracle Clinical Digital Assistant is meant to improve clinicians' EHR experience, helping providers give their full attention to patients while simplifying administrative tasks.

The multimodal voice and screen-based tool "participates in the appointment," according to Oracle, to automate note taking and propose "context-aware next actions," such as ordering medications or scheduling labs and follow-ups.

Providers can use the tool – which will be available in the next 12 months, the company says – to verbally access elements of a patient's EHR record during an appointment, avoiding the need for "multi-menu, multi-step" interactions with the software.

On the patient side, the tool's NLP capabilities will make it easier to use voice to book appointments, ask billing questions, check their own personal health information and ask questions about their medical care and treatment, according to Oracle.

Providers can also use it to send information and reminders to patients via web chat embedded in their patient portal.

THE LARGER TREND
Other news made Monday at the Oracle conference include new healthcare-specific analytics capabilities to Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, designed to help health systems gain new financial insights and build stronger supply chains as they improve their care delivery.

The company also unveiled new workforce management capabilities to its Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management tool, with the aim of helping healthcare organizations adapt to changing labor markets and better attract and retain workers to meet consumer expectations.

It's been a time of change and evolution at Oracle Health more than a year since its landmark $28 billion acquisition of Cerner was finalized in June 2022.

Since then, the company has closed two major campuses in the company's longtime home of Kansas City, pursued several rounds of job cuts and sold off some parts of the company.

Oracle's focus has been on interoperability and innovation for its healthcare products as CEO Larry Ellison has announced big plans for a national EHR database to tackle the challenges of data fragmentation.

The company has renegotiated its cornerstone VA deal, and there are hopes it can resume by next summer. Still, even as it has added new international customers, it recently lost two major clients in the U.S., while others have expressed concerns about the company's go-forward plans.

ON THE RECORD
"The EHR should be a provider's best ally in delivering engaging, personalized care to the patients they serve," said Suhas Uliyar, senior vice president of product management, Oracle Health.

"By bringing comprehensive generative AI and voice-first capabilities to our EHR platforms, we are not only helping providers reduce mundane work that leads to burnout, but we are also empowering them to create better interactions with patients that establish trust, build loyalty, and deliver better outcomes."

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