NextGen Healthcare Chief Executive Officer, David Sides, recently hosted a fascinating conversation with Diane Kaye, Chief Product Officer, and Sanjeev Kumar, PhD, Chief Data & Analytics Officer. The multidisciplinary team of health IT experts discussed the history and evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, the true meaning of “The New UI is No UI,” and how NextGen Healthcare is leveraging AI to remove sources of friction for providers and reimagine workflows that lead to better healthcare outcomes for all. Explore how AI is reshaping healthcare, especially in electronic health records (EHR) and clinical workflows.
The True Meaning of The New UI is No UI™
AI has evolved significantly since the 1950s, progressing from early symbolic systems like the rule-based healthcare system, MYCIN, in the 1970s to machine and statistical learning in the 1990s, which coincided with the rise of electronic health records. The 2000s brought big data and predictive analytics, followed by deep learning and natural language processing in the 2010s. Currently, generative AI and large language models like ChatGPT have transformed healthcare, enabling advanced tools such as ambient documentation, clinical summarization, and decision support. However, even to this day physician and non-physician providers can spend an entire appointment typing, barely engaging with the patient—a scenario that AI aims to transform.
NextGen Healthcare’s bold vision that “The New UI is No UI,” subscribes to artificial intelligence’s ability to eliminate the need for clinicians to interact with screens (User Interfaces, UIs) during patient encounters.
AI can listen, understand, and document conversations automatically, allowing clinicians to focus fully on the patient in their presence. Central to this vision is NextGen® Ambient Assist, a tool that stands out with real-time, low-latency transcription, support for multiple languages and accents, and a strong commitment to privacy—no patient data is stored or used for training. The information captured integrates seamlessly into the EHR, eliminating the need for copy-pasting, and goes further by intelligently suggesting diagnoses, orders, and billing codes based on the clinical context. This combination of automation, accuracy, and integration is designed to reduce clinician burden and enhance the quality of care, eliminating the provider burden of manually entering data into a computer screen, and reducing after-hours charting.
AI’s Potential for Revenue Cycle Management
AI is transforming revenue cycle management (RCM) in healthcare by automating and streamlining the billing process. AI has the potential to take over many of the manual, labor-intensive steps involved in coding, claim submission, and payment processing, ensuring that claims are accurate and follow payer-specific rules. This reduces errors, minimizes delays, and improves financial outcomes for practices. AI can learn from large datasets to identify the most labor-intensive steps and automate them, including attaching necessary documentation and handling denials. It also can be effective on both the pre-claim and post-claim sides, predicting the likelihood of claim denials before submission and helping resubmit corrected claims afterward. AI technology is positioned to make RCM more efficient, reducing accounts receivable days, and ultimately supporting the financial health of physician practices.
AI Advice for Healthcare Organizations
When adopting AI technologies, the emphasis is on moving quickly but thoughtfully. For example, starting with high-impact, low-risk areas like ambient documentation, which delivers immediate value without clinical risk. Additionally, AI adoption should go beyond features to include governance, safety, and compliance—NextGen Healthcare can be a key partner in managing AI responsibly. Integration and quality are also critical. AI should reduce workload, not shift it elsewhere. There’s a need for continuous evaluation and improvement. Implementation isn’t a one-time effort, but an ongoing process that must evolve with user feedback and technological advances. AI adoption requires a balance of speed, strategy, and sustained commitment to quality and efficiency. There’s a potential for AI to fundamentally change how clinicians interact with patients by removing the need for constant documentation, allowing them to focus more on care rather than administrative tasks. The New UI is No UI concept, where AI handles documentation, suggests next steps, and supports follow-up actions like lab result reviews is reimagining everything from clinical workflows to revenue cycle management, with intelligent agents capable of performing tasks autonomously and contextually, much like a human assistant. AI can simplify complex processes by reducing administrative burdens and improving efficiency, ultimately enhancing both the patient, provider, and practice experience.
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