Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 3/2/26

Clinical informatics is a broad subspecialty. Board certification requires being knowledgeable across a broad range of domains. The American Board of Preventive Medicine, which along with the American Board of Pathology can grant certification, distills it for its website:

Physicians who practice Clinical Informatics collaborate with other health care and information technology professionals to analyze, design, implement and evaluate information and communication systems that enhance individual and population health outcomes, improve patient care, and strengthen the clinician-patient relationship. Clinical Informaticians use their knowledge of patient care combined with their understanding of informatics concepts, methods, and tools to: assess information and knowledge needs of healthcare professionals and patients; characterize, evaluate, and refine clinical processes; develop, implement, and refine clinical decision support systems; and lead or participate in the procurement, customization, development, implementation, management, evaluation, and continuous improvement of clinical information systems.

The description doesn’t specifically describe patient-facing tools, but it does cover individual health outcomes, improving patient care, and building the patient-physician relationship. These goals are easier to accomplish when clinicians have tools at our disposal that help patients understand their own health situation and provide education and information.

Plenty of other entities are trying to grab our patients’ attention, which can lead to interesting conversations in the exam room as we work to counter medical misinformation or try to lead patients to consider evidence-based care plans.

I was surprised to see a study in Communications Biology this week that looked at direct-to-consumer testing. The results of tests that look at the microbiome of the digestive system varied dramatically among laboratory providers. The authors sent identical stool samples to the vendors, but each identified different bacterial levels, and only three of more than 1,200 bacteria were consistently identified across all the reports.

It wasn’t just variability between single samples that were sent to multiple facilities, but also among identical samples that were sent to the same facility. For one set of samples, the lab identified one submission as “unhealthy,” while two identical submissions were “healthy.”

The authors hoped to better understand the consistency and reliability of direct-to-consumer testing, which is not required to comply with the same level of regulations that traditional clinical laboratories must meet. Many of these tests fall under the category of “wellness” rather than being designed to diagnose a specific condition. Many physicians find the term “wellness” irritating because it has been used to hawk everything from unregulated botanical substances to jade eggs that are to be placed in the vagina to enhance sensuality (they are also an infection risk and may cause pelvic floor dysfunction, so those are a “no” when patients ask.) 

The authors found that bacteria in the genus Clostridium had the most variability in the reports. Three labs failed to detect it in one or more samples, and one reported it at five times the expected level.

The authors attribute the variability to different reference databases, reporting cutoffs, sample processing protocols, testing methods, and quality control standards. One of their goals was to make a point that just because a direct-to-consumer test is popular doesn’t mean that it is accurate, and that patients should understand the limited evidence that is behind such tests.

As a middle school science fair judge, it is an issue when three identical runs of the same experiment give different outcomes. For those who are curious, the paper details how exactly they prepared the identical specimens, all of which were obtained from a single donor.

Some direct-to-consumer tests get a lot of attention and often lead to patients arriving at the office of their primary care physician, asking us to treat something that isn’t actually a problem. I’ve seen multiple people bring in salivary hormone test panels that aren’t evidence-based and also allergy testing results that can be downright dangerous if not handled appropriately.

I enjoy working with patients who are engaged and want to take action, but these visits often lead to lengthy conversations that may not fit in the typical busy primary care schedule. Also, patients are almost universally unaware that at-home tests are not of the same level and quality as those that we would order in the office or during a virtual visit.

The authors call on the industry to take concrete steps to improve the transparency and interpretation of gut microbiome testing. These could also be applied to other types of testing. Specifically, they call on labs to address the idea of clinical validity and whether testing yields data showing correlation or causation with respect to a given health factor.

They also call for improved analytical performance in the testing process, maximizing both accuracy and precision. They go further to recommend that the industry work with testing companies and other stakeholders to create guidelines for testing, which would improve the validity of testing as well as the confidence of consumers who seek it.

Although patient-directed stool testing isn’t something you typically hear much about, research like this highlights some of the opportunities for clinical informatics experts to lend their knowledge to the task. We can help identify if a population-level issue  needs to be investigated, perform qualitative and quantitative research to understand the scope of the problem, support researchers as they seek data and information around the topic, and identify how the findings might be used to improve patient care.

We can also configure the tools at our disposal to help identify which patients would benefit from such testing, configure clinical decision support systems based on new evidence, and automate the creation of treatment plans based on the results while delivering effective patient education along the way.

Many of my colleagues think that clinical informatics team members just build order sets and flowsheets in the EHR all day. They don’t necessarily have exposure to all the different types of healthcare technology we can employ and how it can have an impact on the patients and communities that we serve.

As more of us enter the field, we should be able to provide that kind of education and exposure to our specialty. Our colleagues should know what we can do, just as they know how a cardiologist or pulmonologist can contribute to the care team.

What’s the most interesting clinical informatics project your team has done? Has your group built any tools that address direct-to-consumer testing or management of those results? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

Readers Write: Healthcare’s Seasonal Surge is Upon Us. Is Your Health System Ready?

Healthcare’s Seasonal Surge is Upon Us. Is Your Health System Ready?
By Dusti Browning, RN

Dusti Browning, RN, MSN is VP of growth and client solutions for Conduit Health Partners.

Seasonal surges happen every year, and 2026 is particularly brutal. The flu was already associated with 120,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths by the end of 2025.

The winter months often bring with them a tidal wave of respiratory viruses, influenza, RSV, and COVID. Clinicians expect them. But while these spikes in patient volume are predictable, too many health systems find themselves in a challenging supply-and-demand environment that can negatively impact patient care and the bottom line.

A recent report found that 60% of nurses are experiencing a significant uptick in patient volume and case complexity amid the current flu season. As seasonal surges collide with ongoing emergency department (ED) overcrowding and staffing shortages, health systems face mounting pressure to find scalable, practical solutions.

The national report surveyed 64 nurses, half working in triage and half in transfer centers, and found that 70% of nurses believe that offering 24/7 virtual nurse triage prevents unnecessary ED visits. In fact, additional industry data points to an ED avoidance rate of 72 to 76% over the past two years, meaning nearly three out of four triage encounters are resolved without an ED visit.

While hospitals and health systems can’t eliminate seasonal surges, they can anticipate them and implement systems that reduce strain.

Protecting System Capacity Remotely

The report found the most frequent patient concerns during the seasonal surge include minor respiratory symptoms, medication management, chronic disease follow-up, and low-acuity infections. Around 75% of nurses report that remote solutions help manage these issues effectively. This is significant given the challenges facing health systems during seasonal surges. A separate study found that 35% of patients that present to an ED during the winter months wait four or more hours for a bed.

Safeguarding capacity in today’s EDs is an imperative, with stats from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing that 42.7 visits per 100 people start in the ED. As those numbers continue to increase, virtual nurse triage provides an alternative access point that is proven to reduce strain on health system EDs during seasonal surges.

Notably, the recent patient access and throughput report found that nearly one in three avoided emergency visits associated with nurse triage after regular clinic hours. This demonstrates that real-time clinical access can help patients reach the right level of care at times when they are more likely to turn to the ED. The end result is improved overall access to care, better outcomes, and lower costs. A measurable decrease in staff burden and burnout further strengthens the impact.

Enhancing Patient Experience

When seasonal outbreaks occur, capacity is at a premium, but so is staffing. Burnout continues to be rampant in healthcare. A recent survey conducted by The Harris Poll of 1,504 frontline health care employees revealed that 55% are looking for job openings, interviewing, or planning to switch to a new role in the next year.

While AI and automation are primed to ease administrative burdens in the coming years, the reality is that patients and families in distress often need to speak with a human being. When staff are lacking and already under immense strain, patient experiences are negatively impacted. Lengthy wait times to get to a professional or a frustrating technology-first approach can cause patients to turn to the ED out of desperation. Virtual nurse triage offers a more accessible, clinically appropriate alternative.

The patient access and throughput report found that roughly one in four nurses witness or suspect worsened outcomes due to delays in access or coordination. The findings reinforce the efficacy of virtual nurse triage to address operational challenges of seasonal surges and improve patient outcomes and experiences.

Readiness When Demand Peaks

The CDC predicts that flu activity could continue to rise in the coming weeks. Seasonal surges don’t have to mean bottlenecks and burnout. The data show what works: nurse-first, telephone triage reduces visits to the ED, eases the operational burden of overcrowded waiting rooms, and reduces the risk of worsened outcomes.

As health systems prepare for the next seasonal wave, integrating nurse triage into access pathways isn’t just operational. It is essential for protecting capacity, easing staff strain, and improving patient care.

HIStalk Interviews Guillaume Castel, CEO, PerfectServe

Guillaume Castel, MBA is CEO of PerfectServe.

Tell me about yourself and the company.

I have been CEO at PerfectServe for almost seven years. We have been working hard and making a lot of progress in driving value for our customers and our partners.

Almost seven years ago, we had a different vantage point on the constituents we serve, typically hospitals, health systems, and physician groups. Our commitment to them was that we were going to get the right communication workflows to the right people at the right time using the right channel. To accomplish all this, we went about acquiring and putting together four companies and then a fifth one.

If you fast-forward to today, we have more than doubled the size of our company. We are now 400-plus employees around the United States and Canada, along with some contractors outside the US. We have been deliberate about driving one big value proposition, which is accelerating speed-to-care across the continuum for all users and doing it from the cloud.

Doing all this the right way took some time. Integrating the pieces the right way took some time. But now we have a value proposition that resonates across diverse stakeholders in the United States, increasingly in Canada, and we are knee-deep in some really interesting conversations in Europe.

What does the clinical communication systems market look like, and how do EHR vendors fit in it?

We think of solving two reasonably evergreen problems. One is making sure that your workforce is optimized in the workplace and in the right place. Right people in the right place at the right time, clinicians and staff, to meet the demands of patients. Then once they are there, that they have an almost intuitive way of communicating and collaborating with one another. We are focused on those two big problems.

The second one leverages clinical communication capabilities. We have been ahead of the market in using logic, routing, and technologies to enable complex workflows for typically very large health systems. We partner with a ton of ecosystem vendors. We keep a catalog of 270 integration points with our competitors, with our friends, and obviously with the EHR companies.

I am proud to say that in many instances, we drive value with and for the EHRs with a number of our customers. Having this open-minded view of how to collaborate with clinical systems inside hospitals will continue to be important.

What metrics do health systems use to measure return on investment?

It has changed a lot. If you go back five to 10 years, it was throughput, length of stay, patient satisfaction, and physician and clinician productivity. Those metrics continue to be extraordinarily important for us to track. But now, what is always front and center on the minds of decision makers is clear and demonstrable ROI. 

We have put together a comprehensive platform that offers a lot of capabilities. Our conversation is, this is what we do at PerfectServe. Our Unite platform delivers value across the continuum for all of your users. We can help you with clinical communication issues. We can help you with provider scheduling issues. We can help you with your physician group and practice management issues. We are increasingly helping you with transfer center and operator console software issues. And last but certainly not least, we follow patients when they go home with well integrated patient and family communications.

This allows us to say, tell us what you are using today. Tell us all your scheduling systems across your various sites of care. Tell us about your pagers. Tell us about your sometimes point-to-point texting capabilities. Tell us about your old-school faxing capabilities. Tell about all the servers you have in the basement of your hospitals that are allowing you to power transfer centers.

We can rationalize all of that and drive almost immediate financial ROI for them. This has been a successful strategy for us. It does not exclude the clinical benefit that we drive, and we continue to be clinician-focused. But that immediate consolidation play with guaranteed financial ROI and tackling problems like physician and clinician burnout has been resonating for us in a way that we frankly did not fully anticipate five to seven years ago.

How is the industry looking at how provider scheduling impacts job satisfaction and burnout?

We continue to be surprised with the fact that there continues to be a need for fairness in how schedules are built. Fairness may be as simple as, “I don’t want to be on call three times this week,” or “I want to make sure that I can go attend my kid’s recital on Sunday. Therefore, take my preferences into account.”

Our technology allows administrators and sometimes physician leaders to make sure that all those preferences are taken into account when the schedule is being created, and that people feel that they have been heard. This concept of technology being leveraged to create fair and equal schedules, removing human bias and taking preferences into account, has led to health systems and large physician groups having higher retention rates with their clinicians over long periods of time.

We continue to refine that model. We make sure that when an administrator creates a schedule with our technology, it is a near-perfect schedule that requires as little human intervention as possible.

How are health systems and provider groups using technology to manage inbound communications?

It is going at a rapid pace. We are excited about solving, in partnership with some of our largest customers, this equation and algorithm for almost real-time alignment of patient-to-clinician supply and demand. You will see soon, and in fact a couple of instances are already live, the ability to flex the number of clinicians and support staff that you have in any given location based on the type of patients coming in and the acuity that they are presenting with.

That cannot be predicted six months ahead. You can build a really good schedule six months ahead, but day-to-day changes happen, and we need to be able to embrace that. Our technology is flexible and reflects near-realtime preferences. We can recalibrate who should be where and why.

It’s not as simple as saying that physician Guillaume is going to work from 8 to 4 in this location every Thursday. Sometimes it will be 7 to 3. Sometimes it will be 8 to 6. This alignment of supply and demand is paramount to the wellbeing and the financial health of all of our customers.

How has the role of contact centers changed?

This concept of a contact center is probably the least well-understood part of the hospital. It is the face of it. It is bidirectional. It is both outbound and inbound. It now requires vendors to be nimble with AI capabilities that support patients, their families, clinicians who call the hospital, and even ambulances that call the hospital with an important case that needs care teams to be mobilized in very short order.

The diversity of use cases that go through a transfer center or a contact center has changed a lot. We are proud to have a technology that powers that transfer center. When I think about the product that has driven the most momentum for us over the last couple of years, it’s probably that.

It’s this strategic control point, where you have agents who are trying to match incoming calls from a diverse set of stakeholders. It could be an ambulance, a patient, a family member, or a clinician calling from a physician group who is trying to get an update on their patients that have been admitted. We make sure that those agents can do their best work by having access to schedules and using proper routing and clinical communication to actually deliver a message that will get to the right person at the right time.

That is real innovation, real-time productivity, and true operational improvement for health systems. We are gaining a ton of momentum on that front, and we think that it’s a very big control point for the rest of our technologies.

How do you incorporate AI into your strategy and product roadmap?

We serve about a million users, and as such, we take our job seriously. We embrace AI, but we are also careful, because we cannot afford to make mistakes with models that are imperfect.

The way we think about AI at PerfectServe is twofold. One is internally, where we have embraced AI for the last two years. It has made us more productive. It has made us more efficient. It has made our people happier. There is no end in sight. We have appointed a person who runs AI across all programs at PerfectServe. We have a clear mission to make our company go faster.

Then you have AI applied to our capabilities that are customer-facing. A simple view that I believe is exactly right is that AI will help us get more out of workflow software by converting what was viewed as a workflow into actual work, enabled by agentic AI.

We have seen clear examples. If you are running a call center, you can definitely improve the experience by embracing AI at the first layer of triage levels so that the call gets to the right person in that transfer center, the right way, and with the right context. This is embracing AI in a way that makes an operational difference for the health system without putting at risk any of the clinical outcomes.

We are just starting there. We have a roadmap full of AI projects that are being applied to our work in the ambulatory setting, inside the operator console work that we do in health systems, and increasingly in our provider scheduling capabilities.

What are your lessons learned in leading the company so long and seeing it reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue?

Listen to customers. Invest in technologies that are differentiated, that can stand on their own, and that have real logic. We don’t invest in me-too products that are simple. We think that those will disappear fast.

Integrate your capabilities. Have an open mind to spending money to integrate with all the other vendors that hospitals and physician groups use. We will eventually prove to all of them that our products not only can integrate, but can also enhance the strategy they have already decided.

We had a breakthrough in 2022-2023 where we talked about putting together capabilities that had not been put together before. As recently as earlier this week, we see competitors following our strategy, and it makes us proud. We are focused on the next best thing that we will add to our roster of services and capabilities.

What makes me proudest is our people. We have more than 400 people who spend every day thinking about how they can make our customers better and how we can stitch together better solutions to drive value for them financially, operationally, and clinically. It has worked for us. We still have work to do, but it has been a great ride.

Have you seen challenged startups that might be ripe for acquisition that could help you expand your product?

We are super disciplined. The problem with the market right now is that there is a misalignment between startup valuation expectations and what we believe to be the actual embedded value in the asset that we are interested in. We look at four or five companies every week. When we find the right match between value, culture, and the people that are coming along with the technology, we will pull the trigger, and we will make sure that our customers are aligned with our strategy.

M&A is part of our strategy, and so is building new capabilities internally. We have a track record of doing that. The Healthcare Operator Console product is a good example.

If we pay attention to what our customers are telling us, and if we continue to have a mind pointed towards the future, we will put the right stuff together. That has worked well for us.

Consolidation of capabilities is only starting, and scale is going to matter. The track record is going to matter. Being secure for our customers and proving that every day is going to matter. Embracing AI, integrating, and making sure that we’re present for all stakeholders.

There’s a ton of momentum on the ambulatory side right now, with big multi-specialty groups that have clear enterprise-level software and AI needs. We are happy to be present there. We see very good synergies between those groups and the large health systems that we are lucky enough to have as partners.

We like our position. We work hard every day to make sure that we stay ahead. Research firms have been kind to us, and I think that we have earned it. Gartner has placed us at the top of the Magic Quadrant three years in a row, and we don’t take that lightly. We have had the same success with KLAS reports.

We are focused. We continue to pay attention to what the market is saying. We listen to our customers. We keep our culture. We believe that this is the right recipe for continued success.

Morning Headlines 3/2/26

AHA Comments on ASTP/ONC Health Care Technology Interoperability Proposed Rule

AHA asks for seven changes to ASTP/ONC’s HTI-5 proposed rule, including setting a reasonable transition timeline for changing the certification program to FHIR-based criteria.

UMMC officials say normal operations will resume Monday after cyberattack

University of Mississippi Medical Center will reopen its clinics on Monday, noting that it can now access patient records, following a February 19 ransomware attack.

BrainCheck Raises $13 Million to Expand AI-Enabled Cognitive Care Platform

Digital cognitive assessment and care platform company BrainCheck announces $13 million in Series A funding.

Monday Morning Update 3/2/26

Top News

AHA asks for these changes to ASTP/ONC’s HTI-5 proposed rule:

• Set a reasonable transition timeline for changing the certification program to FHIR-based criteria.
• Maintain criteria for C-CDA since rural providers depend on it.
• Retain certification criteria for privacy and security, transitions of care, and decision support interventions.
• Retain real-world testing conditions.
• Issue broad guidance on AI before defining how it fits within information blocking.
• Retain the “infeasibility” exception that allows providers to deny third-party requests to modify medical records.
• Repeal the disincentive actions that can be taken for information blocking.

Reader Comments

From K-Pop: “Re: medical innovations. This TV series shows cool technologies that are actually real.” Gizmodo lists real-life technical innovations that have been shown on HBO Max’s “The Pitt” that include hand-held ultrasound, AI-assisted transcription, and virtual reality.

From Janus: “Re: conferences. ViVE is an expensive conference, and reading that people attend without a plan makes me cringe. Then folks like Clear are sitting in on all these regulatory meetings pushing products that don’t actually provide any real value. Do patients even WANT Clear? Also, is anyone at HHS considering the fact that patients don’t trust them, and the idea of a nationwide framework / TEFCA is terrifying for a lot of Americans?”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Poll respondents say that using conferences as a way to meet with customers or prospects efficiently is their top reason for attending. Most don’t place ROI on generating leads.

New poll to your right or here: What does vendor litigation over network patient data sharing say about interoperability governance?

Listening: reader-recommended The Shoaldiggers,  a nine-piece band from NC whose eclectic music, as portrayed on You Tube, requires a van full of instruments such as mandolin, banjo, flute, washboard, a bow-played handsaw that sounds like a theremin, and a comically large upright bass. They are a testimonial for seeing local talent instead of ignoring music that isn’t from your college years or getting locked in to catchiness-engineered hits that feature “performers” who can’t write music or play an instrument.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Publication: HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS26 lists the activities of sponsors at the conference.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

People

Christina Waters, MBA (AssistRx) joins PerfectServe as chief revenue officer.

Announcements and Implementations

A study finds that primary care physicians who cut visit volume by 10% spent more time per visit in Epic, while their after-hours work and inbox time also increased. The authors conclude that asynchronous EHR work continues even when visit volume declines.

The FDA issues 510(k) clearance for six indications to Qure.ai’s algorithm for chest x-ray analysis, increasing its total to 26.

A new KLAS early insight report on digital pathology finds that while adoption by US healthcare organizations lags that of global counterparts at just 15%, use is growing due to newly FDA-cleared products and the possibility of billing for the service.

Privacy and Security

University of Mississippi Medical Center will reopen its clinics on Monday, stating that “we can access patient records” following a February 19 ransomware attack.

Other

This must-read post seems relevant to how small-business health tech folks like physicians and boutique consultants could use healthcare AI. It’s also convinced me that I need to dig deeper into Anthropic’s Claude. An attorney describes how his two-person business law practice competes with huge firms by building its work around Claude:

When legal AI companies talk about customizing AI to a firm’s playbook, they are solving a problem that barely matters and ignoring the one that does. The real leverage comes not from which template the AI starts with, but from the instructions that tell it how to think about the work …. I’ve created custom instruction files, called “skills,” that encode my analytical frameworks, my preferred formats, my voice, and my judgment about how specific types of legal work should be done. When I upload a contract for review, Claude doesn’t apply a generic framework. It doesn’t even apply my firm’s framework. It applies my framework, the one I’ve developed over a decade of practice, automatically. The difference between a firm playbook and an individual lawyer’s encoded judgment is the difference between giving someone a recipe and teaching them how to cook.

Also possibly relevant, Block, the parent company of Square and Cash App, will lay off nearly half of its workforce despite strong business performance. CEO Jack Dorsey says that expanded use of AI allows smaller teams to operate more efficiently and effectively, and he predicts that most companies will follow a similar path within the next year. My observation is that many corporate executives are so convinced, logically or not, that AI will dramatically reduce their headcount needs that they are willing to undertake big downsizings now and figure out the details later.

Epic is right up there with Wendy’s for sassy corporate tweets. I want to believe that doctors aren’t really using MyChart to hit on women, but I’ve worked in hospitals too long to rule it out.

Sponsor Updates

• CVS Caremark expands its use of Surescripts Touchless Prior Authorization.
• Nym celebrates its eighth anniversary.
• Optimum Healthcare IT receives a 2026 ServiceNow Partner of the Year Award.
• Qure.ai’s FDA cleared indications now total 26 across nine products for X-ray and CT, exceeding 65 CE certified indications and other global validations.

Blog Posts

• How AI-Enabled Biomarkers Improve Early Cancer Diagnosis. (Qure.ai)
• Revenue Cycle Tech That Pays for Itself: Building the ROI Case for Automation (Vyne Medical)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

Morning Headlines 2/27/26

Health Gorilla Files Motion to Dismiss, Reaffirming Confidence in Interoperability System

Health Gorilla files a motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Epic and several health systems, which alleges that it enabled third parties to improperly access patient data by misrepresenting their purpose for obtaining records.

Honest Health Raises $140 Million to Advance Value-Based Care for Health Systems; NewSpring Leads Investment

Value-based care enablement company Honest Health announces $140 million in new funding.

Oracle Health Launches Device Validation Program to Streamline Medical Device Integration and Accelerate Innovation in Healthcare

Oracle Health launches a paid program that will validate medical device connectivity, functionality, and workflow alignment.

Third Way Health Raises $15M to Expand AI-Powered Healthcare Front-Office Operations

Healthcare operations software vendor Third Way Health raises $15 million in Series A funding.

News 2/27/26

Top News

Health Gorilla files a motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Epic and several health systems, which alleges that it enabled third parties to improperly access patient data by misrepresenting their purpose for obtaining records.

Health Gorilla argues that both Carequality and TEFCA require mandatory dispute resolution before litigation, that the interoperability frameworks assign enforcement authority to Carequality and the TEFCA RCE rather than private litigants, and that the complaint alleges at most that Health Gorilla should have been more suspicious rather than that it acted with actual knowledge of willful misconduct.

An Epic spokesperson says that Health Gorilla remains responsible for safeguarding patient data and understanding how it is used, and adds that the matter should be resolved in federal court for transparency.

Meanwhile, LlamaLab, which was also named in the lawsuit, files its own motion to dismiss the document, arguing that Epic bypassed its own contractual dispute obligations and wrongly included the company in the case among several unrelated defendants. LlamaLab, which sells medical records to negligence law firms for $50 per request, says that Epic is protecting its dominance and targeting companies that make it easier for patients to retrieve their own medical records.

Reader Comments

From Beagle Eagle: “Re: Epic v. Health Gorilla. If interoperability only works when one dominant EHR vendor plays traffic cop, then it was never really interoperability. Either the governance frameworks function as designed, or we admit that the network-of-networks model is mostly branding. Watching vendors argue in federal court about who gets to define ‘treatment purpose’ feels like a preview of how TEFCA disputes will play out when real money and market share are at stake.”

From Thalamus: “Re: UMMC downtime. Every health system says downtime procedures are solid, yet hospitals or clinics still go dark for days when ransomware hits. If core ambulatory operations can’t function without network access, then business continuity planning is still theoretical.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

ViVE down, HIMSS to go. My guide to HIMSS26 will be updated ongoing (see Dr. Jayne’s unsolicited testimonial). HIStalk sponsors can provide their participation information to be included. Companies that aren’t sponsors can still get in on the action by contacting Lorre to sign up.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Publication: HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS26 lists the activities of sponsors at the conference.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

The chief legal officer of personal health record company ChartSquad warns that law firms and other organizations, including their intermediaries, cannot misrepresent themselves as treating providers to obtain medical records from exchanges. She adds that attorneys should not pay third-party companies to retrieve records, then bill the patient for that service, when established legal pathways allow them to obtain records directly from patients or providers with proper authorization.

Sales

• Wayne General Hospital (MS) will deploy Eko Health’s Sensora AI cardiac detection platform and digital stethoscopes in its emergency and primary care departments.

People

Teresa Tonthat, MBA (Texas Children’s Hospital) joins Cook Children’s Health Care System as SVP/CDIO.

Announcements and Implementations

Mend launches Nutrition for Healing, a free educational resource that addresses evidence-based nutrition as a cornerstone of healing and recovery. Mend’s CEO is industry veteran Paul Roscoe.

A NEJM editorial says that the human-in-the-loop principle should be treated as a design specification that includes three parts: the clinical loop at the point of care, the governance loop, and the learning loop that oversees ongoing monitoring and model updates.

Oracle Health launches a paid program that will validate medical device connectivity, functionality, and workflow alignment.

Government and Politics

CMS develops a Medicare App Library on Medicare.gov that beneficiaries can use to find and access digital tools that meet standards for security, privacy, use of medical evidence, usability, and equity. The use cases include “Kill the Clipboard,” conversational AI assistance, and prevention of diabetes and obesity. The library is part of the CMS Digital Health Tech Ecosystem.

A federal jury convicts Texas medical laboratory owner and former professional football player Keith Gray of running a genetic testing fraud scheme that billed Medicare $328 million, of which $54 million was paid. His labs paid kickbacks to marketers to supply DNA samples and Medicare beneficiary information that was used to bill for medically unnecessary genetic tests. Gray earned a bachelor’s degree in actuarial science and mathematics from UConn and played center on its football team, although his NFL career consisted of only a few weeks on a practice squad.

Privacy and Security

Cognizant-owned TriZetto updates the size of its 2024 breach to 3.5 million people.

University of Mississippi Medical Center clinics remain offline from a confirmed ransomware attack on February 19. Officials say that the attackers have communicated them, but declined to divulge the amount of ransom requested. UMMC hopes to reopen the clinics on Monday. 

Other

Epic CEO Judy Faulkner posts a tribute to Meditech’s Neil Pappalardo, who died last month:

Neil Pappalardo, who founded MEDITECH in 1969, passed away in January at the age of 83. He created a great company.

Neil helped Epic get a start. He and others at MEDITECH shared advice with me; for example, how to assign offices, what to do about titles, forms to fill out such as for vacation — and everything they shared was very helpful. They care for their customers, they focus on technology, and they never went public, so they avoid the tyranny of the quarter. Epic holds MEDITECH in high regard.

Years ago, when they were helping us get started, Neil invited me to his home for dinner. I realized it was unusual when his kids asked why a piece of folded cloth was next to each plate. I felt honored to be there.

Dolly Parton never ceases to amaze me and everybody else (after all, she wrote “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” in the same day), so it’s not shocking that East Tennessee Children’s Hospital renames itself Dolly Parton Children’s Hospital.

Sponsor Updates

• Fortified Health Security names Harold Hansen EOD security analyst and Alex Goldstein third-party risk analyst.
• Inbox Health becomes an UrgentIQ preferred patient payments partner.
• Shannon Health (TX) goes live on Mednition’s Kate AI.
• Optimum Healthcare IT posts a new episode of “Visionary Voices” podcast featuring Trinity Health.

Blog Posts

• HFMA Region 5 SES 2026: Leadership Is the Differentiator (FinThrive)
• 15 Essential Contact Center Metrics and KPIs to Measure in Healthcare (Five9)
• Evaluation of AI in Patient Communications (Impact Advisors)
• How our Digital Front Door strategy is easing administrative burdens and boosting the patient experience (Meditech)
• How Effective Are Your Health System’s IT Cost-Cutting Measures? (Med Tech Solutions)

Contacts

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EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 2/26/26

I appreciated Mr. H’s comments earlier in the week about the challenges that companies encounter when trying to justify the cost of ViVE and HIMSS exhibits via booked revenue.

As a CMIO, I am unlikely to do business with someone just because I saw their booth at a conference. In fact, having a poorly prepared or apathetic booth staff is probably worse than having no booth at all.

Years ago, my CIO had recommended that I follow up with a vendor whose rep he had spoken to at a high level. I arrived at the booth, identified myself, and said that my CIO had referred me to take a look. I received the conversational equivalent of a pat on the head, with an instruction to come back when my CIO could also participate. I guess they missed the title on my badge and didn’t understand that I was the one with the actual decision-making authority for clinical applications.

In preparing to attend ViVE, I spent too much time deciding what to wear given temperatures ranging from 50 to 80 degrees. And of course, figuring out which shoes to pack. I was grateful to have HIStalk’s Guide to ViVE document to help me scope out some visits with vendors that weren’t on my list.

I noticed that some savvy vendors didn’t list booth numbers, but instead provided a list of their executives who would be on site and instructions on how to book a meeting. I also appreciated those who highlighted members of their company who would be speaking, the planned topics, and where to find them. Those kinds of listings are more likely to catch my attention than a boring blurb about being a cloud-hosted SaaS platform just like everyone else.

In traveling to ViVE on Sunday morning, I was caught in the gap between the Department of Homeland Security saying that they would be suspending TSA PreCheck security lines and the subsequent reversal of the decision. I travel often and at generally the same time, so I recognize a lot of the TSA staffers that typically work PreCheck at my airport. They’re usually pretty chill, even during busy Monday rushes.

Going through the “regular” security line on Sunday, the agents seemed more stressed. Travelers were also certainly stressed. Many who usually go through PreCheck didn’t seem to know how to put their items in a bin or get through quickly. Fortunately, I had seen the announcement of closures before I went to bed on Saturday night and left early. Even so, the security line was extremely long. About an hour later, the PreCheck line was back open, providing relief to the chaotic main screening line.

I’ve been part of several startup companies, so I understand what it’s like to have to show up and work without pay while you’re waiting for your next funding check to clear. Several members of my family were without pay during the last government shutdown. It can be devastating for the average US family that isn’t positioned to absorb that financial challenge.

When traveling, remember that kindness costs nothing. If you have friends or neighbors who are being impacted by government shutdowns that seem to be our new normal, consider offering whatever support you can.

ViVE is an interesting conference due to its co-location with CHIME events. These tend to draw more CIOs, which can make for a higher proportion of conversations with attendees who not only have a budget for solutions, but also the authority to spend it. Still, a “see and be seen” element exists. 

I overheard a couple of folks talking about how they didn’t really have a plan for the conference. They weren’t sure why they were there, or how their attendance was adding value. They were, however, happy to have gotten away from the northeastern US before winter storms hit, and seemed to appreciate the California sunshine.

I also overheard someone who said that he was prospecting for his company that was less than a week old. As a seasoned buyer, I hope he’s not leading with that tidbit.

ViVE provides meal service for a portion of the conference. They had a large seating area, but it was crowded. Outside food truck options were available and popular, but my schedule sent me to the grab-and-go option more than I would have liked.

It was great to see old friends and meet new people. Monday was my busy night attending vendor events. The Healio AI launch party was seafood forward and seemed to have a good turnout. From there, I was off to the Supreme Communications event, which was casual but fun, and then to the Abridge soiree at the Ritz Carlton. I spotted quite a few CMIOs from top 20 health systems at that one.

The best party of the night by far was hosted by Evergreen Healthcare Partners and Fortified Health Security at the Grammy Museum. Attendees had access to an exhibit featuring Tejano music queen Selena. The menu choices were on point, particularly the mini salted caramel chocolate tarts. I had an early morning of work waiting for me in the Eastern time zone, so I was back at my hotel early.

Following my calls, I made my way to the convention center and attended a few sessions that seemed meatier than those that I encountered at HLTH in the fall.

I noticed several people who were wearing microphones even though they weren’t speaking. I wonder how much of their day they record, or maybe they just aren’t taking their microphone off between times they need it. It reminded me of the early days of Google Glass, when people had to wonder if they were being recorded. If you are one of those folks who always has a microphone at the ready, feel free to weigh in with your strategy.

The most eye-catching booth backdrop that I saw was this one from the Berwyn Group. It drew me into stopping in to hear their pitch, where I learned about how they support organizational population health efforts by ensuring the accuracy of information when patients are deceased. I hadn’t thought about that in detail, other than how it impacts me in primary care. The team was great to talk to and explained their business well, so if you’re in the market for a solution to support death audits, give them a look.

As always, IMO Health brought their footwear A game to the conference. On the last day of the show, I saw a woman who was walking to the show floor wearing flip flops at 8 a.m. I don’t know if that was her first choice, or whether it was need-based following less than stellar footwear selections earlier in the week, but kudos to her for sporting them proudly.

I have enjoyed my time in the industry and in seeing tools evolve. I had a chance to chat with the folks at Medicomp Systems, who showed me their generative AI capabilities and how new elements are working seamlessly with the Medicomp Quippe tool. I was glad to see that one of their demo personas named “Seymour Patients” continues to be alive and well, or at least as much as one can be in the virtual world.

Overall, it was a more productive week than I anticipated, which is always a nice surprise. Now I’m hoping for the best for my trip back to the East given the number of canceled and delayed flights and the amount of snow on the ground.

If you attended ViVE, how was it? What were your biggest takeaways? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

Morning Headlines 2/26/26

Baba raises $6.5M Seed led by General Catalyst

Baba, which offers Medicare beneficiaries tech-enabled patient advocacy and care navigation services, raises $6.5 million in seed funding.

CMS announces library of digital health apps for Medicare beneficiaries 

CMS develops a Medicare App Library to help beneficiaries access apps focused on eliminating manual check-in, conversational AI assistance, and diabetes and obesity management.

QC Capital Announces Strategic Investment in My Pediatric Doctor to Expand Nationwide 24/7 Pediatric Urgent Care Telehealth Access

Online urgent care provider My Pediatric Doctor secures funding from QC Capital Group.

Oura launches a proprietary AI model focused on women’s health

Smart ring-maker Oura develops an AI model that its Oura Advisor chatbot will use to offer wearers customized insights about women’s health.

HIStalk’s Guide to HIMSS26

Agfa HealthCare

Booth 225

Contact: Kara Clarke, director of marketing, North America
kara.clarke@agfa.com
978.761.9432

At HIMSS26, Agfa HealthCare will showcase its vision for “One Platform” Enterprise Imaging, a cloud-ready, SaaS-enabled approach designed to simplify complex imaging ecosystems; strengthen interoperability; and support secure, resilient clinical and IT workflows. What’s new includes continued advancements in its unified Enterprise Imaging platform; zero-footprint streaming technology for fast, full-fidelity image access anywhere care is delivered; and RUBEE Workflow Orchestration with embedded, vendor-neutral AI capabilities that streamline enterprise worklists and enhance diagnostic confidence without adding workflow friction.

Visitors to the booth can participate in personalized, one-on-one product demonstrations to explore real-world use cases and modernization strategies. Visitors are invited to connect with the team on Wednesday, March 11, during a Belgian Beer Tasting event. The speaker lineup will also feature a Main Stage session, “Defining Your Cloud Enterprise Imaging Strategy,” with Tampa General Hospital Senior Director of IT Steve Johnson and Agfa HealthCare Director of Enterprise Imaging Strategy Charles Morris, who will offer practical insights into cloud transition and enterprise-wide imaging transformation.

AGS Health

Contact Matt Bridge to arrange a meeting.

Contact: Matt Bridge, SVP of strategic solutions
matthew.bridge@agshealth.com

AGS Health is more than a revenue cycle management company — we’re a strategic partner for growth. Our distinctive methodology blends award-winning services with intelligent automation and high-touch customer support to deliver peak, end-to-end revenue cycle performance and an empowering patient financial experience.   

We employ a team of 15,000 highly trained and college-educated RCM experts supporting customers across diverse care settings and specialties, including nearly half of the 20 most prominent US hospitals and 40% of the nation’s 10 largest health systems. Our thoughtfully crafted RCM solutions deliver measurable revenue growth and retention, enabling customers to achieve the revenue to realize their vision.

Altera Digital Health

Booth 4431

Contact: Lindsey Honig, marketing communications manager
lindsey.honig@alterahealth.com

A global healthcare IT leader, Altera Digital Health develops and elevates technology that brings next-level healthcare within reach. At HIMSS26, we’re excited to showcase how our AI and EHR advancements help healthcare organizations navigate their top challenges while supporting the human moments that matter most for patients, providers, and their communities.

Visit booth 4431 as EVP of AI Ben Scharfe provides crucial guidance on maximizing AI’s value while managing new liabilities in his educational theater session, “AI Unbound: Agentic workflows and deregulated risk,” on Wednesday, March 11, from 1:00–1:10pm.   

Join our in-booth happy hour on Tuesday, March 10, from 4:30–5:30pm to meet Altera solution and subject matter experts while enjoying complimentary beverages and light fare. For our full theater schedule and to learn more about Altera’s presence at the event, visit our events page.

Arcadia

Booth 2447

Arcadia Customer AMAs 
Stop by our booth for live “Ask Me Anything” sessions with Arcadia customers and hear directly from the people using our solutions every day. Ask your questions, learn from real-world experiences, and get an honest take on what it’s like to work with Arcadia – from peers who’ve been there.    

Sips and Socks 
It’s back! Don’t miss one of the most anticipated moments of the conference – our annual Arcadia HIMSS sock reveal. Stop by the booth to grab a drink and score a pair of our 2026 socks. Arrive early – these fan favorites are first-come, first-served, and they will go fast!   

Speaker Sessions
Tuesday, March 10, 4:00-5:30pm   
Wednesday, March 11, 4:00-5:30pm    
“Improving Medicaid Outcomes with Digital Equity and Nutrition Support,” Tuesday, March 10, from 11:00-11:30am, Level 3, Murano 3304  
“Artificial Intelligence in Action: Clinical Process Maps Get Modern,” Tuesday, March 10, from 11:00 – 11:30am, Level 5, Palazzo D

Visit our HIMSS page to learn more.

Artera

Booth 6421

Contact: Adrianna Hosford, chief communications officer and head of marketing
Adrianna.Hosford@artera.io
833.234.9355

Artera is the proven agentic healthcare company, leveraging a decade of deep expertise to support 2 billion patient communications annually. Our solutions empower humans and AI agents to work together to fix patient communications across text, phone, and web, unifying the entire patient journey – from scheduling and intake to billing and more. Trusted by over 1,000 healthcare organizations (including specialty groups, FQHCs, large IDNs, and federal agencies), Artera directly increases staff efficiency, boosts patient engagement, and improves the provider bottom line, helping patients get the care they need with simplicity and speed.   

2B+ Annual Comms. | 200M+ Patients | 10yrs Experience | FedRAMP High in Process | www.artera.io

Join us at HIMSS to experience our fully autonomous AI agents in action – we’ll demonstrate how these agents manage a range of complex workflows (scheduling, FAQ resolution, appointment management, and more) to reduce staff burden and improve the patient experience.

Stop by our booth to connect with our experts and explore strategies for optimizing patient access, implementing AI-driven patient communication and much more. Plus, when you schedule and attend a meeting with an Artera team member, you’ll receive a $25 Amazon gift card. As an added bonus, you’ll be entered to win an iPad Pro in our post-event raffle. Schedule a meeting with our team at booth 6421 here.

Cardamom

Contact Adam Dial to arrange a meeting.

Contact: Adam Dial, chief customer officer
adam@cardamom.health
608.469.6154

The Cardamom team is excited to attend HIMSS! Reach out to connect with us during the event.    Cardamom is a minority-owned, technology-forward health IT professional services company serving healthcare providers, payers, and health IT organizations. With a team-based, AI- and automation-first approach focused on committed outcomes, Cardamom helps customers more effectively use data, analytics, AI, and applications to improve care quality, reduce costs, and enhance patient and provider experiences. Cardamom is also committed to growing industry talent by hiring high-potential team members without prior health IT experience and providing comprehensive training and mentorship to deliver industry-leading results. For more about Cardamom, visit https://cardamom.health.

CereCore

Booth 6126

Contact: Phil Sobol, chief customer officer
Phil.Sobol@CereCore.net
855.276.9112

CereCore works behind the scenes to empower hospitals and health systems with IT services. Need to drive operational efficiency, improve financial outcomes, and uncover more bandwidth for your IT team? Our experts understand the major EHR platforms inside and out. Tap into support desk solutions that will result in happier users and providers.

For the second year, we earned a top KLAS Research rating in managed IT services, and we were the only vendor whose clients responded “Yes” 100% of the time when asked if their managed IT services provider exceeded expectations.      

Facing an EHR transition that requires additional expertise? CereCore partners with healthcare organizations across the US and globe to provide comprehensive EHR consulting, IT and application support, technical professional and managed services, strategic IT consulting, and advisory services. Our hospital operations experience means we can help you create customizable roadmaps for RCM optimization, overcome talent shortages, and maximize your HIT investment.      

Get a healthcare IT assessment and benefit from an outsider’s perspective, because the cost of not knowing often far exceeds the investment in finding out. Connect with us at HIMSS and find meaningful change with CereCore’s healthcare IT managed services.

Clearsense

Booth 1058

Contact: Kara Freeman, senior director of revenue operations
kfreeman@clearsense.com
612.747.2134

Stop Legacy Bloat: Clearsense Delivers the Blueprint for Cost Optimization at HIMSS26   
Gartner reports that cost optimization is now the top priority for health system CIOs. Yet, while application rationalization is a powerful driver of savings, it remains healthcare’s most underutilized strategy. At HIMSS26, Clearsense will demonstrate how health systems are transforming legacy application decommissioning into a disciplined, repeatable engine for sustained cost reduction and operational modernization.   

Visit booth 1058 to see how Clearsense helps health IT leaders move beyond simple archiving to build a governed, trusted data foundation that:   

• Delivers recurring cost takeout: Eliminate ongoing maintenance, infrastructure, and TSA expenses through structured application rationalization and active archiving programs that generate sustained operating expense savings.   
• Strengthens security and compliance: Reduce legacy application risk by retiring redundant and unsupported systems while preserving secure, audit-ready access to retained clinical and operational data.   
• Creates an AI-ready core: Consolidate fragmented historical data into a centralized, governed archive – establishing a reliable foundation for advanced analytics and scalable AI initiatives.   

In addition, Clearsense will officially unveil its AI strategy at HIMSS26, integrating intelligence across the platform to drive faster operational execution while delivering a more intuitive, insight-driven experience at the point of care.   

Schedule a meeting with the Clearsense team by clicking here!

Clearwater

Booth 10001-07 in the Cybersecurity Command Center

Contact: John Howlett, SVP and chief marketing officer
773.636.6449

You’ll find Clearwater exhibiting in the Cybersecurity Command Center at booth 10001-07, where our team will be showcasing how healthcare organizations can proactively manage cyber risk, protect patient data, and strengthen compliance across increasingly complex digital ecosystems. Stop by to learn how Clearwater helps healthcare leaders:  

• Reduce cyber risk across clinical, operational, and third-party environments.  
• Navigate evolving regulatory and compliance requirements.  
• Build resilient, security-first digital health programs.   

Also, be sure to catch our session “Healthcare AI Governance & Risk Management: Securing Innovation Without Slowing Care” in the Cybersecurity Command Center on Wednesday, March 11, from 10:00-10:20am. Clearwater VP of Consulting Solutions & Strategy Dave Bailey will be joined by Onvida Health CISO Blaine Hebert for a discussion of how to harness AI innovation while managing new and evolving risks.

CloudWave

Booth 6235

Contact: Christine Mellyn, VP of marketing
cmellyn@gocloudwave.com
508.251.8899

Visit CloudWave, the healthcare data security experts, at booth 6235 for an interactive, informative experience! Our team of experts will be available to discuss important topics such as cybersecurity, cloud solutions, compliance, and more. In addition, we’re excited to offer a hands-on tabletop card game that immerses you in incident response and cybersecurity strategies. Using the Backdoors & Breaches deck of expertly designed cards, players will simulate real-world cyber incidents, sharpen response skills, and gain a deeper understanding of modern cyberattack techniques.      

We’ve got a lot happening:    

• Win a Prize! – Participate in raffles at the conclusion of each day. You don’t need to be present to win!  
• Ask Questions, Get Answers – Visit our solution stations and speak with our experts about how CloudWave can help address your IT and cybersecurity challenges.    
• Meet with Our Team – Request a personal meeting (customersfirst@gocloudwave.com) with us to discuss your unique needs.    
• Tabletop Simulations – Join us for hands-on simulations and take home your own card deck, plus a bonus gift if you complete the game.

CognomIQ

Booth 11724

Contact: Bonny Roberts, VP of customer success
Bonny.Roberts@CognomIQ.com
614.565.7884

Healthcare Data Sucks. CognomIQ can UNsuck it. One end-to-end platform replacing more than two dozen SaaS tools like Snowflake, DataBricks, PowerBI, Tableau, ESRI, Datavant, TriNetX, and more. Save seven-figures per year immediately with a 15X speed increase or we’ll refund 100% after the first year. We’re that confident. Come by booth 11724 on the AI Trail and tell us to UnSuck it! We’ll brand you with swag.

Concord Technologies

Booth 1461

Contact: Liza Marie Hayward, marketing program manager
lhayward@concord.net

Concord is the market leader in Intelligent Data Exchange for the healthcare industry, securely processing over 4 billion pages of protected data every year. Our portfolio includes AI-powered fax and document workflows, Intelligent Document Processing, and Straight-Through Processing of patient data into the EHR. With 30 years of proven expertise, Concord empowers healthcare organizations to eliminate manual workflows, improve operational efficiency, and enhance the delivery of care.   

We hope you’ll join us for some of our activities throughout HIMSS:   

• Tuesday, March 10: Attend our Main Stage session, “Rethinking Interoperability: Is it time to trust LLMs over standards?” from 2:40–3:10pm.   
• Wednesday, March 11: Concord-sponsored Happy Hour in booth 1461 from 3:00-5:00pm.   
• All exhibition hall hours at booth 1461: Race to win in our Simulator Challenge. Put yourself in the driver’s seat and take a few laps around the track in our in-booth race simulator. Take your place on our leaderboard after you pass the checkered flag!

CTG Health Solutions

Booth 3516, Venetian Level 2​

Contact: Sarah Blafer, marketing team lead, demand generation
Sarah.Blafer@ctg.com
860.942.2180

CTG, a Cegeka company, delivers IT and business solutions that enhance digital agility. With 55+ years of experience – and 35+ years in healthcare – we empower healthcare organizations to modernize systems, improve performance, and advance digital initiatives through innovative services and modern technologies. We’ve supported 1,000+ healthcare organizations, including children’s hospitals, health systems, and academic medical centers. Our expertise spans EHR implementation and managed services, cybersecurity, ERP, cloud, infrastructure, IT/application support, and clinical optimization. Combining local market knowledge with 10,000+ Cegeka Group professionals in 15+ countries, we serve healthcare and other high-growth industries. For more information, visit us at booth 3516.

DrFirst

Booth 3243

Contact: Erin Hall, director, event strategy and experience
eleasehall@drfirst.com
216.650.7687

Meet with DrFirst at HIMSS! Behind every prescription is a tangle of benefit checks, prior authorizations, and pharmacy back-and-forth. Meet with us at HIMSS to see how DrFirst cuts through the complexity within the prescribing workflow before problems start.      

Prior authorizations are resolved right away, not days or weeks later. Coverage and cost are visible at the point of prescribing. Prescriptions arrive at the pharmacy ready to fill. Automated text messages keep patients engaged and on therapy. The result: Fewer abandoned prescriptions, better patient outcomes, and less administrative burden.

To learn more, don’t miss the session featuring Magnolia Regional Health’s Ben Long, MD showing how SMS text notifications reduced odds of CHF readmissions by 6% on March 12 at 8:30am in Palazzo D, Level 5.

Let’s chat in Las Vegas!   

About DrFirst
For 25 years, healthcare IT pioneer DrFirst has empowered providers and patients to achieve better health through intelligent medication management. The company has won over 25 awards for excellence and innovation, including Time’s list of the “World’s Top HealthTech Companies of 2025,” recognizing the company’s medication management solutions and integrated workflows that make every step of the patient journey easier, from first prescription to ongoing adherence. DrFirst solutions help 100 million patients a year and are used by more than 450,000 prescribers, 71,000 pharmacies, 270 EHRs, and over 2,000 hospitals in the US. To learn more, visit DrFirst.com.

Ellkay

Booth 5423

Ready to build the future of healthcare? Ellkay is a trusted enterprise data management partner, driving innovation and connectivity across the healthcare ecosystem.   

Join us at HIMSS26! We will have daily coffee bars and Happy Hours on Tuesday and Wednesday at booth 5423. Come get a drink and discuss how your organization can transform care delivery through true interoperability and data management solutions.

FDB

Booth 3235

Contact: Sammy Keating, product marketing manager
Sammy.Keating@fdbhealth.com
802.343.2619

At FDB (First Databank), we’re proud to be the leading provider of drug knowledge that helps healthcare professionals make precise, confident medication decisions. At HIMSS26, we’re bringing our theme, “Intelligence to Free Your Mind,” to life – showcasing how our medication intelligence, built on decades of trusted drug knowledge and delivered in patient-specific clinical context, helps reduce cognitive burden, restore focus, and strengthen both human and AI-enabled workflows.   

As healthcare organizations look for safe, scalable ways to adopt AI and automation, we’re excited to introduce new innovations at booth 3235. We’ll be featuring FDB MedProof MCP, our AI-native server that standardizes governance and access to medication intelligence across AI-enabled systems. We’ll also highlight workflow advancements like FDB Script Agent, an AI-enabled prescription automation agent designed for ambulatory settings, and FDB VerifyAssist, an inpatient pharmacy order verification assistant designed to help hospital pharmacists quickly spot orders that need closer review.   

Attendees can also explore how our trusted solutions – FDB MedKnowledge, FDB Targeted Medication Warnings, FDB AlertSpace 2.0, Pharmacogenomics CDS, and FDB Meducation – support health systems in improving medication safety, reducing non-actionable alerts, and delivering truly patient-specific decision support and education. We’ll also be showcasing FDB Vela, our modern e-prescribing network built to power resilient, connected medication workflows.

While you’re at our booth, join one of our daily micro-sessions covering topics like agentic workflows, medication reconciliation, and pharmacy order verification. And of course, we’re creating space to recharge and connect. We’ll be hosting “Calm Continues at Happy Hour” on Wednesday, March 11, from 4:00 to 5:30pm at our booth, with beer, wine, soft drinks, and light bites. Throughout the conference, stop by for complimentary chair massages, infused water, themed giveaways, and a chance to win a Theragun Mini (3rd Gen) portable massage device. We’re looking forward to connecting with you at HIMSS26!

Fortified Health Security

Booth 11302

Contact: Rachel Bryant, marketing coordinator
rbryant@fortifiedhealthsecurity.com
904.316.3310

Join Fortified Health Security at HIMSS26 to explore the latest in digital health innovation, cybersecurity, and healthcare transformation. Fortified is built for healthcare, offering tailored solutions to help you address your unique challenges, navigate the ever-changing legislative landscape, and work alongside you to create a stronger cybersecurity posture.  

Tee off HIMSS26 with us at Top Golf Las Vegas on March 8, or connect with our team at booth 11302 and enter our daily giveaway. Get all the details to secure your spot here. We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas!

Lincata

Booth 1365

Contact: Adam DeRocher, chief revenue officer
adam.derocher@lincata.com
712.541.9132

Lincata’s Bedside Operating System (OS) transforms hospital televisions into digital experience tools that launch MyChart Bedside TV directly in-room. It’s simple. LincTV by Lincata, coupled with MyChart Bedside TV, existing TV screens, cameras, microphones, and other equipment helps health systems create the foundation for smart room capabilities and virtual care. LincTV consists of a proprietary set-top box and purpose-built MDM that provides flexibility, scalability, security, and ease of deployment. More than TV. Make it LincTV.

Med Tech Solutions

Booth 5448

Contact: Shana Tachikawa, director of marketing
stachikawa@medtechsolutions.com

Med Tech Solutions (MTS) is a managed services provider delivering comprehensive IT and EHR support to healthcare organizations nationwide. With a singular focus on healthcare technology, MTS empowers clients with IT and EHR managed services, cloud hosting, 24/7 help desk, and revenue cycle solutions, along with tailored software and security offerings. With Stoltenberg Consulting now part of the MTS family, MTS expands this reach with deep Epic, Oracle Cerner, NextGen, ECW, and Meditech consulting; staff augmentation; go-live support; and legacy system services. Together, MTS and its brands help healthcare providers optimize technology, streamline operations, and enhance patient care across full IT lifecycles.   

Elicit greater value from your EHR investment. Ensure long-term success of your EHR program across organizational growth. Leverage skilled, flexible, EHR-certified resources to cost-effectively fill IT expertise gaps with:    

• EHR Service Desk  
• EHR-Certified Staffing  
• Legacy EHR Managed Services 
• EHR Data Archiving  
• EHR Data Integration  
• Go-Live Support  
• M&A Systems Alignment      

Backed by 3x Best in KLAS standing for Partial IT Outsourcing, maximize your EHR’s full potential. Schedule an executive meeting with Med Tech Solutions in booth 5448!

Medcurio

Booth 222

Contact: Joe Lovato, director of customer solutions
joe@medcurio.com
503.704.3920

Medcurio helps health systems access and act on their EHR data in real time, without waiting months for integrations or settling for partial interfaces. Its VennU platform installs inside the customer’s environment and gives teams direct, governed access to the data they already own. The result is faster insight, faster action, and fewer workarounds. VennU is used to power dashboards, alerts, automations, and any downstream workflows that depend on complete and timely EHR data. Customers decide what data is accessed, who can use it, and how it is applied, with full auditability and security controls. Nothing leaves the customer’s control.   

Medcurio has been invited by InterSystems to showcase its technology live at their booth. We’re demonstrating how we’ve made it incredibly simple to get ANY data – in real time – out of the EHR. Not limited to: FHIR, HL7, latent or batch-based data. This is true real-time access without the traditional constraints.   

We’ll be giving live demos of our cutting-edge platform. If your organization has ever struggled to extract real-time data from your EHR, stop by!

Medicomp Systems

Booth 5435

Contact: James Aita, director of strategy and business development
marketing@medicomp.com
703.803.8080

Medicomp delivers the industry’s only physician-curated universal data foundation, transforming healthcare data into trusted intelligence through Quippe, its evidence-based Clinical Intelligence Engine. Quippe connects information across domains, normalizes every input, and validates AI outputs to ensure accurate, interoperable insights at the point of care – fueling innovation, improving accuracy, and unlocking the full value of clinical data.   

Medicomp will be showcasing entirely new functionality that streamlines clinical workflow, combining technologies like ambient listening, natural language processing (NLP), and Model Context Protocol (MCP); and leveraging its universal data foundation and knowledge graph to deliver the efficient, intelligent, clinical workspace that clinicians have been craving.     

The gap between data and understanding is probably costing you – in denied claims, compliance penalties, technology ROI, clinician burnout, and patient safety risks. Stop by the Medicomp booth to learn how your systems can benefit from:   

• Clinically-validated LLM outputs. 
• Diagnostic intelligence that understands context, is evidence-based, and makes disparate data computable.  
• Clinical-grade agents based on a universal data foundation.   

Solve the data reliability problem with diagnostically intelligent clinical data solutions. To learn more, visit Medicomp.com.

Nordic Global

Booth 631

Contact: Rebecca Whaley, head of marketing
Rebecca.Whaley@nordicglobal.com

Join Nordic, a global leader in healthcare transformation, at #HIMSS26 in booth 631 to explore the future of healthcare technology. Enjoy free, all‑day coffee at our booth and meet the Nordic team to discuss how we can support your workforce and operational priorities for 2026. We’ll also be unveiling our new look at our HIMSS brand launch party.    

Highlights:    

• Enjoy free, all‑day coffee and meet the Nordic team at booth 631.    
• Join us at the Buzzed After Dark Networking Reception, sponsored by Nordic, on Sunday, March 9, from 9:00pm-12:00am.    
• Donut panic. Fewer apps are possible. Grab a free donut and learn about application portfolio management with Nordic and our partner Clearsense on Monday, March 10, from 10:00–11:00am at booth 631.    
• Connect with Nordic and Workday at the FQHC Happy Hour on March 10, from 5:00–6:00pm at the B Bar at the Wynn. (invite only)    
• Join us as we officially launch Nordic’s new brand during Under the Nordic Star, a client and partner reception, sponsored by Clear and ServiceNow, on March 10, from 6:00–9:00pm. at La Cave Bar + Restaurant at the Wynn.    
• Meet Nordic CMO Craig Joseph, MD, author of “Designing for Health,” to explore why human‑centered design matters in healthcare on Monday, March 10, from 1:00–2:00pm and Tuesday, March 11, from 10:00–11:00am at booth 631.    
• Join Nordic for a networking happy hour during the HIMSS Chapter Social hosted by HIMSS Wisconsin on March 11, from 4:00-5:30pm at booth 631.    

Visit our event page to see what Nordic is doing at HIMSS and book a meeting with our team!

Optimum Healthcare IT

Meeting Room MP11356

Contact: Larry Kaiser, chief marketing officer
lkaiser@optimumhit.com

Best in KLAS, Overall Implementation Firm, Optimum Healthcare IT will be at HIMSS. You bring your goals and outcomes, we will bring the strategy and team to make it happen. Optimum’s comprehensive service offerings include enterprise application services; digital transformation; and workforce management, which features our Optimum CareerPath skill development program. Backed by a leadership team with extensive expertise, we deliver tailored healthcare consulting solutions to diverse organizations.   

HIMSS Highlights  
Meeting Room MP11356 
AWS Demos March 12
AWS Booth: UC Davis Health – Primary care scheduling reduces no-shows effectively. Patient verification streamlines appointments, enhances revenue.           
Wrapt Health: Oncology scheduling with predictive rescheduling modeling. Reduces cancellations, minimizes medication waste costs. 
Microsoft Demo March 10 at 10:00am, March 11 at 11:10am, and March 12 at 12:50pm.
Microsoft Booth: Deliver secure, high-performance clinical workspaces in AVD – anywhere.
Reception on March 11 at 6:00pm. Contact your Business Development Executive for more information.

PerfectServe

Booth 1665

Contact: Jenn Corcoran, senior marketing manager
jcorcoran@perfectserve.com
802.379.5352

Struggling with after-hours coverage, missed handoffs, or “Who’s on call?” confusion? At HIMSS, PerfectServe is offering complimentary 15-minute workflow reviews for healthcare leaders who want to identify gaps in their communication and scheduling processes – and leave with clear, practical next steps. During the 15-minute Workflow Review, we’ll: 

• Walk through your current communication and scheduling workflow. 
• Identify failure points that create delays, burnout, or risk. 
• Highlight opportunities to simplify, automate, or integrate with your EHR. 
• Share how peers are addressing similar challenges.   

You’ll leave with: 

• A clearer picture of where things break down. 
• Practical ideas you can take back to your team. 
• A benchmarked perspective from other health systems.   

Who should book time: 

• CMOs, CIOs, COOs 
• Clinical operations leaders 
• IT leaders responsible for clinical communication 
• Physician and nursing leadership 
• Scheduling managers   

Why PerfectServe? 
PerfectServe helps health systems accelerate speed to care by bringing communication and scheduling into a single, EHR-integrated platform. We help organizations: 

• Create a single source of truth for staff scheduling. 
• Enable secure, role-based care team communication. 
• Power a reliable clinical contact center. 
• Finally answer, with confidence, “Who’s on call right now?”   

For more, visit our dedicated event page.

Praia Health

Contact Conrad Swanson to arrange a meeting.

Contact: Conrad Swanson, VP of sales
conrad@praiahealth.com

Praia Health is the patient experience orchestration platform for health systems. We help health systems attract, engage, and retain patients by supercharging their portals and digital tools with seamless, personalized journeys in one platform. The result is higher retention, lower costs, and measurable ROI.   

Praia Health was named Best in Show at the HIMSS26 Emerge Pitch Competition, winning in the Health Systems: Address Hospital Capacity Crisis category. Praia Health CEO Justin Dearborn will be presenting during the HIMSS Emerge Innovation Pitch Competition: Best-in-Show Solutions for Hospital Systems Challenges on Wednesday, March 11, from 11:50am-12:35pm. Team members will also be available throughout the conference to share more about our patient experience orchestration platform.

SlicedHealth

Contact Jason Whiteaker to arrange a meeting.

Contact: Jason Whiteaker, regional VP, channel partnerships
jason.whiteaker@slicedhealth.com
901.493.3110

SlicedHealth is a payer contract revenue intelligence platform designed to help hospitals, health systems, specialty practices, and surgery centers navigate payer complexity and secure the revenue they’ve rightfully earned. Through AI-driven contract modeling and real-time analytics, SlicedHealth identifies underpayments, denial patterns, and price transparency gaps while bringing clarity to complex payer agreements.   

Our team will be onsite at HIMSS meeting with healthcare finance and revenue cycle leaders focused on reimbursement strategy and contract performance. To connect during the conference, please reach out directly to Jason Whiteaker (jason.whiteaker@slicedhealth.com) to coordinate a time to meet and discuss how revenue intelligence can drive measurable financial impact in 2026 and beyond.

Sonifi Health

Booth 2861

Contact: Jared Allen, SVP of sales
jallen@sonifihealth.com
801.386.1450

Sonifi Health provides industry-leading, interactive patient engagement technology proven to improve patient outcomes and staff productivity. The EHR-integrated platform is designed to anticipate the needs of patients and clinicians, infusing the principles of hospitality into care experiences. As part of Sonifi Solutions, Inc., the company supports more than 300 million end user experiences annually. Learn more at sonifihealth.com.

Surescripts

Booth 1139

Contact: Kate Giaquinto, PR manager
kate.giaquinto@surescripts.com
603.548.5273

Join Surescripts at the forefront of healthcare innovation and learn how we can inform and accelerate decisions to keep patient care on track.   

Connect with us at HIMSS26 in booth 1139 to discover how we can partner to:   

• Deliver clinically appropriate prior authorization decisions faster. 
• Empower the healthcare ecosystem with intelligence and interoperability. 
• Add real-time cost and care intelligence to existing workflows.

Tegria

Booth 4802

Contact: Berit Rhody, Manager, Events and Engagement
berit.rhody@tegria.com

Tegria is a global healthcare consulting and services company that partners with provider and payer organizations to transform healthcare. Tegria’s global team of more than 1,000 experienced professionals has helped drive meaningful change for more than 650 provider and payer clients across North America and Europe. Tegria has been ranked and recognized in consecutive Best in KLAS reports, including a #2 ranking in the “2026 Best in KLAS: Software & Services” report for Overall IT Services Firm and Best in KLAS recognition for Payer IT Consulting (2025) and Application Hosting (2024).   

Join us for some engaging sessions while you are at HIMSS :  

“Lunch & Learn: How Leading Health Systems are Closing the Access Execution Gap” on Tuesday, March 10, from 12:30-1:45pm on Venetian Level 1, Casanova 601. As patient access becomes a strategic driver of financial performance and growth, health systems must move beyond scheduling to optimize the entire patient journey. This session shares executive insights and real-world examples to help organizations strengthen foundational access metrics, align strategy with execution, and turn digital access into a sustainable enterprise advantage. Register here to reserve your spot.

“Don’t Gamble on ROI: Win Big with Change Management” on Wednesday, March 11, from 12:00-12:20pm in the Business Ops Pavilion, Level 2, Hall C, booth 4400. Healthcare organizations often struggle to achieve lasting value from technology investments because the challenge lies not in the systems, but in how change is managed. In this session, KLAS Research and Tegria will introduce a proven change management framework that helps leaders drive adoption, protect ROI, and sustain workforce and patient trust throughout transformation.

“Denied No More: A Revenue Recovery Playbook” on Wednesday, March 11, from 2:00-2:30pm on the Connect Theater Stage. This session explores how a data-driven approach can uncover hidden patterns behind costly bundled procedure denials, including specific service combinations and payer behaviors. Through a real-world case study, attendees will gain practical strategies to reduce denials, improve billing accuracy, and strengthen overall revenue cycle performance.

View full details for all of Tegria’s HIMSS26 sessions on our event page.

Visage Imaging

Booth 3753

Contact: Brad Levin, general manager, North America
blevin@visageimaging.com
540.454.9670

Visage is not only leading imaging’s move to the cloud, we’ve defined it. Visage is delivering Visage 7 | CloudPACS, an AI Optimized Enterprise Imaging Platform purpose-built and proven. Visage 7 | CloudPACS provides unparalleled speed, interpretation efficiency, and much needed relief from the current challenges facing radiologists, clinicians, and imaging IT professionals.   

At HIMSS26, Visage will be demonstrating our latest Visage 7.1.20, including Visage Chat+, Visage 7 | Digital Pathology, and Visage Ease VP for Apple Vision Pro, as well as our latest work-in-progress efforts for Visage 7 | AI. Join us at booth 3753 and enjoy the best gourmet coffee available at HIMSS26, with coffee beans carefully roasted by Visage staff.

Healthcare AI News 2/25/26

News

Anthropic introduces workflow plugins for Claude Cowork that allow users to connect to enterprise software, develop private plugin marketplaces, and deploy AI agents. New connectors include Google Workspace, Docusign, WordPress. New plugins support HR, design, operations, brand voice, financial analysis, and equity research.

An NVIDIA survey of 600 healthcare and life sciences executives and AI practitioners finds that 70% of organizations are actively using AI, with medical technology and drug companies reporting return on investment and nearly half deploying agentic AI. The most common use case is data analytics and data science. Among management respondents, 85% say that AI has increased revenue, and 80% say that it has reduced costs.

Business

Anthropic announces that its Claude Code tool can modernize COBOL programs, sending IBM shares down 13% in their biggest one-day drop since 2000 and wiping out $40 billion in market value. IBM responds that COBOL modernization has been a solved problem for years and that the real issue is cost and return on investment. Analysts say that Anthropic could take some market share from IBM’s tooling, which they believe provides minimal revenue. IBM shares have rebounded slightly, but have lost 9% in the past 12 months.

Publicly traded business software vendor UiPath announces agentic AI solutions for healthcare that include medical record summarization, claims denial prevention and resolution, and prior authorization support.

B. well Connected Health launches a white-label health AI assistant that it says can be deployed by app developers in just a few weeks.

Ardent Health will deploy Hellocare.ai’s AI-assisted virtual clinician and patient observation platform in 2,000 patient rooms.

Research

A study finds that ChatGPT Health failed to recommend emergency care in more than half of serious cases compared to physicians. In some instances, the tool appeared to recognize a serious condition but still offered reassuring guidance, prompting researchers to conclude that a disconnect exists between its clinical understanding and its recommendations. The authors also report that the tool performed inconsistently in directing users with suicide risk to a crisis hotline.

Other

A hospital and medical school in Thailand deploy AI-powered robots to support the care of patients with thyroid cancer and tuberculosis.

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

This Week in Health Tech 2/25/26

Morning Headlines 2/25/26

SEC ends Veradigm (MDRX) investigation without recommending enforcement action

The SEC concludes its investigation of Veradigm with no enforcement action recommended.

HealthStream Announces Fourth Quarter & Full-Year 2025 Results

HealthStream announces Q4 results: revenue up 7.4%, adjusted EPS $0.18 versus $0.16, beating expectations for both.

Coral Care Raises $13M to Tackle the Pediatric Therapy Shortage

Coral Care, a wraparound services and software company for pediatric speech, occupational, and physical therapists, raises $13 million.

Healthcare Access Performance Leader BlockIt Rebrands as Alluvium Healthcare

BlockIt, which offers a health system access and capacity performance system, renames itself Alluvium Healthcare.

News 2/25/26

Top News

The SEC concludes its investigation of Veradigm with no enforcement action recommended.

Reader Comments

From Sidelineguy: “Re: AI note-taking in meetings. I am interested in how healthcare organizations and vendors are thinking about this. I’ve seen vendors pushing back on providers, citing security and confidentiality concerns. In extreme cases, I’ve seen vendors refuse to be on calls with the note-taking took turned on.” I’m not surprised that vendors are reluctant to have meetings recorded, especially large or publicly traded companies. Customer pitches and meetings that once were forgotten almost immediately can now be converted into searchable transcripts, internal knowledge assets, potential AI training inputs, or discoverable material for litigation, and the company is the party that will be held accountable. It is easy to understand why even an honest vendor wouldn’t want to give a prospect or customer control of the institutional memory of the discussion that could be used in contract negotiations or enforcement disputes. Participants may also be required in advance to avoid topics related to product trade secrets, pricing, or information that would require a business associate agreement. Calls could have been recorded before AI, but new technology raises a company’s risk profile and justifies a “no recording” policy, even though that might annoy the client.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor Qure.ai. Qure.ai is a global AI company that is innovating diagnostic solutions in healthcare for early detection and care management. Qure’s solutions power early diagnosis in lung cancer, neurology, and infectious disease to support clinicians and propel developments in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. The company empowers healthcare workers or health systems by helping to identify conditions fast, prioritize treatment planning, and ultimately improve quality of patient life.  Qure.ai has deployments in over 107 countries, with regional offices in New York, London and Mumbai. It is a TIME100 Most Influential Company 2025. Thanks to Qure.ai for supporting HIStalk.

Sponsored Events and Resources

Publication: HIStalk’s Guide to ViVE 2026 lists the activities of sponsors at the conference.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

BlockIt, which offers a health system access and capacity performance system, renames itself Alluvium Healthcare.

HealthStream announces Q4 results: revenue up 7.4%, adjusted EPS $0.18 versus $0.16, beating expectations for both.

People

Meghan Molitor (Symplr) joins TeamBuilder as VP of sales.

Altera Digital Health names Sean Sykes (Advanced Utility Solutions) as EVP of Ventus.

Experity promotes Bobby Ghoshal, MBA to CEO.

Health Catalyst promotes Ben Albert, MBA to CEO.

Announcements and Implementations

San Juan Regional Medical Center (NM) implements Wellsheet’s AI-powered predictive clinical workflow and operations software.

Pixel Health incorporates Praia Health’s patient experience orchestration technology into its new One Thread patient experience software.

Golden Valley Memorial Healthcare (MO) launches a remote pregnancy monitoring program using technology from Nuvo.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions develops a healthcare-specific identity management platform.

Government and Politics

ASTP/ONC opens the EHIgnite Challenge, which will award cash prizes for tools, platforms, and workflows that turn exported electronic health information into actionable insights.

Other

A survey of 880 hospital nurses finds that 57% feel that virtual nursing programs don’t reduce their workload, while 10% say it actually worsens it. Just over half say it improves care quality, with 11% noting that improvement is substantial.

Cedars-Sinai (CA) pilots Kneu Health’s disease-monitoring app as part of its Parkinson’s disease program. The health system is an investor in the UK-based company, which participated in its accelerator program two years ago.

Sponsor Updates

• Altera Digital Health announces that 14 customers have renewed their contracts for its Sunrise EHR.
• Waystar will exhibit at EClinicalWorks Day Chicago February 26.
• Concord Technologies celebrates 30 years of innovation and leadership.
• Meditech announces that 15 rural hospitals opted for Meditech Expanse in 2025.
• Arrive Health publishes a new white paper titled “Real-Time Prescription Benefit: Cutting Through the Noise to Deliver Real Value.”
• Black Book Research releases a new market intelligence report titled “Healthcare IT Capital Signals 2026: What VCs, PE and Banks Are Underwriting.”
• Clearwater will sponsor HPE Miami March 4-5 in Miami Beach.

Blog Posts

• 7 Medicaid Eligibility Changes Human Services Leaders Must Prepare For (Netsmart)
• Why Technology Alignment Is Becoming Healthcare’s Unspoken Challenge (CereCore)
• From out of the background to right where you need it: Cloud availability for the journey ahead (Altera Digital Health)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Follow on X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information.
Contact us.

Morning Headlines 2/24/26

Ignite the Future of Health Data Usability

ASTP/ONC launches the EHIgnite Challenge to discover novel ways to transform electronic health information into usable insights for providers and patients.

IU Health files lawsuit against firm hit by 2024 ransomware attack

Indiana University Health files a lawsuit against Change Healthcare for its failure to prevent a 2024 ransomware attack that IU Health claims cost it $66 million and prevented it from processing payments in a timely manner.

Bobby Ghoshal Appointed as CEO of Experity in Planned Leadership Transition

Urgent care technology vendor Experity promotes Bobby Ghoshal to CEO.

Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 2/23/26

It’s clear that AI is here to stay. I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at studies that seem to be either proving its value or dismissing it on the basis of inaccuracy and risk.

Healthcare people tend to look at it with a specific lens. I reached out to contacts in other industries to better understand how they are approaching it, and whether their professional organizations have produced policies or recommendations around its use.

The first person who responded to my query is in the field of law. The initial portion of his response addressed the high-profile problems with AI that have surfaced in the legal world. A number of cases involved attorneys who used AI to construct briefs, but failed to catch that the AI fabricated citations for cases that didn’t exist.

Similar to what we encounter in healthcare, issues exist with the content on which AI systems are trained. Attorney-client confidentiality must not be compromised by becoming part of a data set. Similar risks involve algorithmic bias and discrimination. Attorneys have been sanctioned for misusing AI, with some being fined for fictitious citations.

The legal community is discussing accountability for the use of AI. Ethics experts agree that attorneys are ultimately responsible for the accuracy of matters that are being handled in their name.

My attorney friend shared his opinion that even the best AI isn’t as good as some of his most seasoned paralegals and researchers. His firm tends to proceed with caution, although it does not have a formal policy on the use of the technology. He thinks about about using AI to create documents similarly to having a summer legal intern do it. He reads everything with a critical eye in case it misses the mark, just like interns sometimes do.

We chatted a bit about the idea that AI probably isn’t as good as a law student at the top of their class, but might be better than a student at the bottom of their class. This has parallels with medical education. It is different asking a fourth-year sub-intern to present a case than to ask a third-year student who is on their first clinical rotation to do the same.

We agreed that the idea of blind trust in AI is risky, especially when professional licensure is on the line.

The American Bar Association issued its first guidance on the ethics of AI use in 2024. It specifically noted the need to ensure that legal billings are appropriate for tasks that are conducted using generative AI tools.

The attorney in question is also a commercial pilot. He had a few things to say about the use of AI in the aviation space. Airlines have been using it for operations functions, including maintenance optimization and the modeling of passenger behaviors such as their likelihood to check bags or buy additional services and amenities. Consumer-facing AI includes support chatbots and booking and ticketing systems.

On the maintenance side, AI can help with troubleshooting complex airframes that generate sensor data. Mechanics also use it for maintenance documentation.

He mentioned incorporating AI into flight simulator systems. It uses real-world cases and events to create realistic emergency scenarios that might go beyond the experience of a human simulator operator or operational handbooks.

I must have posed my question at just the right time, because he mentioned a recent announcement about the US Air Force’s Flying Training Center of Excellence. It is developing an AI-based “Instructor Pilot GPT” that is designed to interact with students who are undergoing pilot training. The tool will be trained on flight manuals and aviation documentation. It will help student pilots assess their performance and will provide rapid access to reference procedures. Similar to the commercial side, they hope to use the technology in flight simulators.

The Air Force uses a closed training environment that contains documents such as military protocols, federal guidance, and flight-related publications. I chuckled when I read a quote from one of the people who is involved with the project, who referred to the subset of information as a “data pond.”

Another comment in the article sounded a lot like the conversations that we are having regularly in medical education. Students are on their phones using LLMs every day, so they will expect it as they move forward in training.

The article also notes important concerns that I hadn’t considered in healthcare, such as cybersecurity risks. What happens when your fighter jet GPT gets hacked and harmful information is injected? The same thing could happen to a healthcare system, which would provide the ultimate example of medical misinformation.

As far as professional organizations or regulations, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a formal notice on the use of generative AI tools and services in March 2025. The first page of the document highlights the need to ensure that generative AI use “is conducted in an ethical and responsible manner.”

The notice applies only to FAA’s employees and contractors, but it includes policy elements that are similar to what I see in hospitals and care delivery organizations. These include a requirement to request approval for using generative AI software, the ability to request support for specific use cases that have already been identified, and the need to ensure that AI tools that are found on the internet have been approved by the organization.

The FAA also cautions about the risks of AI infringing on intellectual property, the need to review AI-generated content for accuracy, the need to be transparent about where AI tools are being used, and the principle that it shouldn’t be used to “perform or facilitate illegal or malicious activities.”

I am waiting to hear back from contacts in other industries and will share if I receive compelling insights. If you or your organization does crossover work in areas other than healthcare, how are those industries tackling the use of generative AI? Leave a comment or email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.

Readers Write: Lessons from the ChatGPT Health Debate

Lessons from the ChatGPT Health Debate
By Robert Stewart

By Robert Stewart is CTO of Arbital Health.

A recent column by Geoffrey Fowler in The Washington Post that describes his disappointing experience with ChatGPT Health sparked discussion in the health IT community. While many remain optimistic about the long-term potential of platforms such as ChatGPT Health and Claude for Healthcare, Fowler’s piece highlights issues that healthcare leaders, clinicians, and technologists should examine carefully.

Variability and inaccuracy are not unique to large language model (LLM)-based systems. Many clinical diagnostics have known false-positive rates, and repeat testing is routine when results are unexpected. Clinicians themselves may reach different conclusions when presented with the same clinical information months later. Medicine has always operated within a probabilistic framework.

What is different with LLM-driven systems is their non-deterministic behavior when given the same input repeatedly. Identical prompts can generate materially different responses. Fowler demonstrated this when ChatGPT assigned his cardiac health scores ranging from a B to an F using the same underlying data. That level of variability can cause confusion or anxiety when applied to personal health interpretation.

Many consumer health AI tools are built on retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures, in which the model is grounded using user-specific information such as medical records or wearable device data. Even when anchored to structured inputs, however, the LLM’s narrative interpretation can still vary, reinforcing the need for clinician oversight and appropriate guardrails when deploying these tools in consumer health settings.

It’s also important to recognize the potential psychological impact of these tools. Researchers such as Eric Topol caution against indiscriminate screening of asymptomatic individuals because it often produces “incidentalomas,”(findings that lead to unnecessary follow-up testing or treatment without improving outcomes. Consumer AI health scoring systems risk amplifying this phenomenon by continuously surfacing probabilistic interpretations in the absence of appropriate clinical context.

Wearable Data Challenges

Wearable device data introduces another layer of complexity. Anyone who works with longitudinal wearable datasets understands that the signal-to-noise ratio is inconsistent. Devices are removed for charging, replaced every few years, or switched across vendors that have different calibration baselines. Environmental and behavioral factors such as travel, altitude changes, illness, stress, or sleep disruption can produce statistically significant physiological changes that an AI system may misinterpret without broader context.

Jessilyn Dunn, PhD and her lab at Duke University have conducted extensive research that uses machine learning and statistics to extract valuable insights from consumer wearables, but the work remains challenging. Even highly targeted machine learning applications, such as arrhythmia detection platforms developed by companies like AliveCor, still operate with non-trivial false-positive rates. Wrapping a general-purpose LLM around wearable data without similarly rigorous modeling layers is unlikely to deliver clinically reliable outputs.

Security and Privacy Considerations

As consumer AI health tools evolve, security becomes increasingly important. Anyone who uses ChatGPT, particularly those who are sharing sensitive health information, should enable multi-factor authentication (MFA), which is one of the most effective controls for reducing account compromise risk.

Users should also recognize an important regulatory distinction. Information that is entered into consumer AI services is generally not protected under HIPAA. OpenAI’s enterprise offering, ChatGPT for Healthcare, is designed for HIPAA-covered environments and supports Business Associate Agreements (BAAs), but consumer versions operate under different legal frameworks.

The Takeaway for Health IT Leaders

The lesson from Fowler’s experience is not that consumer health AI lacks value, but that context, governance, and clinical integration matter. Non-deterministic systems that interpret noisy consumer data can easily generate variable outputs that users may misunderstand as clinical conclusions rather than probabilistic insights.

For health systems, payers, and digital health innovators, the near-term opportunity lies in combining LLM interfaces with validated predictive models, strong clinical workflow integration, and transparent communication about uncertainty. Without those guardrails, even well-intentioned consumer health AI tools risk creating confusion rather than clarity.