Health tech company Elation Health has acquired startup Aster to advance the development of an agent AI operating system for primary care.
Elation Health provides electronic medical records exclusively for primary care physicians. Launched in 2023, Aster is an AI-native EHR for women’s health that has developed technology that automates front office coordination and operational tasks through voice AI, including appointment scheduling, insurance verification, patient compliance, test result management, and care navigation.
This is Elation’s second acquisition following its acquisition of Lightning MD in 2023.
“Aster is a women’s health-focused EHR company built with AI at its core. The company serves the women’s health, midwifery, and OB/GYN markets. We are excited to have this team join Elation and advance our AI-native vision for EHR in a way that makes the primary care perspective more comprehensive,” Kyna Fong, co-founder and CEO of Elation Health, told Fierce Healthcare.
She added: “It’s clear that women’s health itself is an important part of primary care, and our expansion into pediatrics last year added to that as we continue to deepen our platform.” Elation Health expanded its pediatric footprint last year.
Sisters Fifi Kara-Newton, M.D. and Laila Kara-Newton, M.D., co-founders of Aster, launched the company with Nacho Vazquez, the company’s chief technology officer, who designed Aster’s full-stack technology and AI capabilities.
Fifi Kara is a two-time founder, Y Combinator alumnus, and Fulbright Scholar who previously led design for Meta’s health and fitness organization. Lyla Kara Newton holds an MBBS from the University of Barts and the London School of Medicine and has practiced medicine, including obstetrics and gynecology, for over seven years.
The sister co-founders founded Aster after Dr. Kara Newton experienced undiagnosed pre-eclampsia during her first pregnancy, resulting in her son’s emergency C-section and admission to the NICU. Determined to build technology to prevent such outcomes, they created an AI-native platform for women’s healthcare providers, according to a press release.
Elation Health was also founded by brothers Kaina and her younger brother Conan Fong, who developed an EHR platform to digitize and improve their father’s primary care practice.
According to a press release, the Aster team built Atlas, a voice agent that automates front-office tasks in healthcare settings. Aster co-founder and Vazquez are joining Elation’s team and bringing expertise in autonomous AI agents, Fong said.
“We have a phenomenal team at Astor. The people there have a really unique background between a wealth of meta experience on the design side and health and fitness as practicing clinicians turned technology founders,” she said. “In an AI-native world, as we build these capabilities, we’re going to need really talented teams who have been thinking hands-on with clinicians about how AI can actually help them at the front-line point-of-care. That’s a unique talent.”
Elation Health built its EHR to improve the primary care experience, focusing on the clinical use of the EHR, rather than strictly using the technology as a billing tool.
In August, Elation launched a major AI expansion on its platform. It includes a suite of natively built AI products that can identify and proactively contact patients scheduled for specific services, analyze and explore population health data using natural language, and provide clinical recommendations to physicians from patient charts.
Fong noted that AI tools can “reduce the burden” on primary care staff. “Staff can be repurposed for activities that AI cannot do, such as relationship building, clinical judgment, creativity, and warmth of the patient experience,” she noted.
In January, the EHR company announced it was incorporating Anthropic’s Claude into its electronic medical records to power AI-driven chart summaries. The company says its clinical insights capabilities now leverage Claude’s speed and long-context reasoning to consolidate complex longitudinal patient data, such as problem lists, medications, visit records, labs, and vitals, into concise summaries.
The partnership with Anthropic will take Elation’s AI native intelligence to “new heights,” Fong said in January.
In March, the company rolled out agent billing workflows built into its platform to streamline pre-visit to payment.
Although there is a huge opportunity for AI in healthcare, Fong argued that currently few companies in the industry are driving the level of deep adoption and value on the front lines to meaningfully improve the clinician experience.
“I think we’ve made great strides in AI-native EHRs. The vast majority of our customers are using our AI,” Fong said. “We’re less interested in the AI hype and more interested in the impact on step functions, the time savings, and the ability to focus on the patient, which has been central to Elation’s mission since its inception.”
According to Fong, clinicians using Elation’s AI capabilities save between six and 10 hours per week.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg of possibilities, and we are excited about how this will allow physicians and customers to free up their time to focus on patient care and improve the patient experience,” she added.
According to Fong, primary care will be one of the first clinical environments to embrace autonomous AI by re-engineering daily clinical infrastructure.
“I think the administrative burden of healthcare, such as prior authorizations and referrals and various administrative hurdles, really falls disproportionately on the shoulders of primary care physicians, who work alongside patients to help them navigate an increasingly complex health care system,” he noted, adding that value-based payment models also increase the complexity of primary care operations.
“I think there is a huge opportunity for primary care to benefit from AI, and physicians are already starting to experience some of the benefits,” Fong said. “Primary care physicians receive a disproportionate benefit, primarily because they experience a disproportionate burden compared to what they are paid and what is required of them.”
Elation Health is focused on building AI capabilities that not only assist clinicians, but handle tasks on their behalf.
“As AI continues to develop and accelerate, we believe we are taking its promise to heart and are at the forefront of translating it into value,” Fong said. “With the support of Agentic AI, PCPs will experience a weight off their shoulders. Being able to handle things so they don’t have to worry about it frees up their headspace and puts their patient decisions and care at the center of their minds. I think this is going to be revolutionary. We’re going to see a lot more from Elation on that front as AI eases the burden and improves the care experience.”
