5 ways athenaOne makes charting easier for clinicians

Clinicians know how much time and energy charting can consume. Even small inefficiencies — an extra click here, a poorly organized list there—quickly add up across dozens of encounters each day. That’s why, when customers highlight inefficiencies or propose better approaches, athenahealth listens carefully — integrating as many customer ideas as possible into each of the athenaOne® three annual product releases.

Every update incorporates frontline insights aimed at streamlining documentation, minimizing friction, and helping providers stay focused on patients instead of screens. For instance, 30% of the new clinical features in athenaOne’s Summer 2025 release were driven directly by clinician feedback.

From specialty-driven problem lists to smarter medication reconciliation, these refinements make workflows faster, cleaner, and more customizable. Together with ongoing initiatives to improve chart closure rates, they show how athenaOne is committed to continuously listening, learning, and improving the clinician experience.

Here are five new features in athenaOne to make charting easier:

1. Organize problem lists by specialty categories

Many clinicians found that traditional problem lists didn’t match the way they think about patient care. Alphabetical sorting helped only minimally, and clinicians wanted the flexibility to organize problems by clinical relevance and specialty so they could focus on the issues that matter most for each patient.

In response, athenaOne now lets providers group problems into specialty-specific categories, such as Cardiovascular or Gastrointestinal. Within each category, problems appear alphabetically — for example, Atrial Fibrillation, Hypertension, Myocardial Infarction under Cardiovascular. The categories are displayed in an order tailored to each specialty’s typical clinical workflow — prioritizing the most relevant areas first (for example, Cardiovascular for cardiologists, followed by related categories like Gastrointestinal and Musculoskeletal) — to enhance charting efficiency by reflecting the practical needs of each specialty.

The result:

• Clinicians can zero in on the most relevant health concerns more quickly.
• Problem lists align with real-world specialty workflows.
• Providers gain customization options that competitors often overlook.

Explore how athenaOne supports practices with specialty-specific charting.

2. Auto-reconcile short-term medications

Reconciling short-term medications used to be a tedious process that took time away from patient care. Clinicians asked for a smarter way to keep charts accurate without all the extra cleanup.

Now, when prescribing a short-term medication (with a structured signature and zero refills), providers can set the medication to automatically move to the historical list once the course is complete. For medications lasting 21 days or fewer, athenaOne calculates the stop date automatically; for longer courses, clinicians can set the timing themselves. A blue dot flags medications that have auto-moved since the last encounter sign-off, keeping records clear and up to date.

The benefits are immediate:

• Charts stay accurate without manual cleanup.
• Documentation requires fewer clicks.
• Clinicians can focus more fully on face-to-face care.

Explore how athenaOne supports urgent care practices and others with smarter medication workflows.

By listening to real-world feedback, we’ve delivered workflow refinements that remove clicks, save time, and let clinicians focus on caring for patients.

3. Configure order sets with optional orders and diagnoses

Clinicians reported that pre-built order sets — lists of orders and diagnoses designed to guide care — were often either too broad, forcing them to remove unnecessary items, or too narrow, requiring them to add missing ones. Both scenarios meant extra clicks and lost time at the point of care.

With athenaOne, providers can now create flexible order sets that include some items pre-checked and others left optional. At the point of care, clinicians can quickly review and adjust selections in a simple pop-up window rather than building a new set from scratch.

This added flexibility means:

• Order sets can adapt easily to each patient’s needs.
• Standard care pathways stay intact while reducing unnecessary variation.
• Providers save time by avoiding repetitive adjustments. 

Explore how athenaOne supports practices with customizable order sets.

4. Reassign multiple documents at once in the clinical inbox

Clinicians and staff often need to route documents — like lab results, consult notes, or referral letters — to the right team member for review or follow-up. Doing this one document at a time was repetitive, time-consuming, and slowed down clinical workflows.

Now, providers can use the Clinical Inbox — the central hub where all incoming patient documents are managed — to reassign in bulk up to 100 documents in a single step across most document types.¹

By reducing repetitive tasks, bulk reassignment helps practices:

• Clear inboxes faster.
• Improve staff efficiency.
• Ensure documents reach the right person without delays.

Explore how athenaOne supports practices and community health centers with streamlined document management.

5. Chart prepping that reflects real-world workflows

Clinicians shared that prepping charts before patient visits often felt disjointed, requiring multiple clicks and workarounds to get records visit-ready. They wanted a smoother, more intuitive way to review and update information ahead of time.

The athenaOne enhanced chart prep tools now give providers a clearer, more flexible workflow for pre-visit preparation. Clinicians can easily review histories, update records, and ensure everything is ready before the patient walks in, reducing the need to catch up during the visit itself.

These refinements help practices:

• Improve visit readiness and reduce in-visit documentation burden.
• Strengthen efficiency across specialties.
• Support better outcomes by closing care gaps in advance.

Explore how athenaOne supports medical groups and hospital systems with smarter chart prep workflows.

Listening and acting on real feedback

Each of these updates reflects input directly from clinicians across the athenahealth network. With continuous, cloud-based improvements, practices receive enhancements automatically, without workflow interruptions or the need for manual updates. This approach ensures that practices can adopt enhancements seamlessly while staying focused on patient care.

These enhancements reflect athenaOne’s commitment to making charting easier, more intuitive, and more specialty specific. By listening to real-world feedback, we’ve delivered workflow refinements that remove clicks, save time, and let clinicians focus on caring for patients.

Explore how athenaOne helps clinicians customize charting for their workflows.