Inside Oracle's AI-powered EHR

In June 2022, Oracle acquired Cerner for $28 billion as part of its efforts to expand into healthcare and boost its cloud business. After the acquisition, Cerner was rebranded as Oracle Health.

In October 2024, Oracle announced plans to create a new EHR system, which would be built independently of Cerner's original platform. In August, Oracle debuted its new, next-generation EHR system. The system was built from the ground-up on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and includes several new AI and voice capabilities.

The new EHR system includes Oracle's clinical AI agent, voice-activated navigation, and enhanced search capabilities that offer "contextual and conversational" AI, the company said. Oracle's clinical AI agent, which was made available on its own a year before, combines generative AI, clinical intelligence, multimodal voice, and screen-driven assistance.  

"Instead of drowning in a sea of screens and clicks, clinicians can simply use voice commands to ask for the information they need, such as a patient's recent lab results and current medications," Oracle Health said in a press release. "Designed in partnership with providers on the front lines, this secure, voice-first solution is reimagining care by empowering clinicians with personalized, streamlined workflows."

"We took on the enormous and highly complex challenge of creating an entirely new EHR, built in the cloud for the Agentic AI era," said Seema Verma, EVP and general manager of Oracle Health and Life Sciences. "… This is the future of intelligent care, where our healthcare providers are freed from technical baggage so they can focus on caring, connecting, healing, and preventing illness."

"From the moment Oracle first teased its next-generation EHR in October 2024, it was clear that the landscape was beginning to shift. Now that the new ambulatory EHR has been officially announced and released, that early spark of curiosity has grown into full-blown excitement," said Tiffany Hales, senior director of EHR services at Optum Insight*.

"For decades, EHRs that were supposed to support clinicians instead entangled them in administrative tasks and processes that took valuable time away from patient care," Verma added. "Oracle Health EHR is a breakthrough. We have made it our mission to deliver transformation to the healthcare system and our new EHR is a testament to this commitment. We are harnessing AI to bring greater intelligence to the bedside, reduce friction between payers and providers, and nearly eliminate the countless hours of data entry required by our nation's healers."

Currently, Oracle's new EHR is only available for ambulatory providers, but the company plans to add acute care functionality in 2026 to support more healthcare settings and clinical needs. 

*Advisory Board is a subsidiary of Optum. All Advisory Board research, expert perspectives, and recommendations remain independent.