Payam Zamani, MD, Founder and CEO at MY DR NOW
Technology should not add complexity to healthcare, it should remove it.

The biggest issue in primary care today is access, and that disproportionately affects underserved populations. If patients cannot get care when they need it, nothing else matters. Technology plays a critical role, but only when it is used to expand access, simplify the experience, and meet patients where they are.

That means designing care around how people actually live. Not everyone can navigate complex digital tools, take time off work, or travel long distances. An effective model uses technology to support multiple access points, whether that is in the clinic, virtually, or in the home, so patients can receive care in a way that works for them.

Equity is not achieved through more tools alone. It is achieved through better access, with technology serving to enable it. When technology is applied correctly, it removes barriers, builds trust, and ensures that high-quality primary care is available to everyone—not just those who can navigate the system.

Morris Panner, President at Intelerad, A GE HealthCare Company
Technology can either widen healthcare gaps or help close them. The difference comes down to how intentionally it’s designed and implemented. The biggest barrier for many patients isn’t access to care itself but access to the information needed to participate in their care. Imaging results, diagnostic reports, and follow-up instructions are often scattered across systems that aren’t designed with patients in mind, but health technology can simplify that experience and improve equity.

Platforms that unify imaging data and care records make it easier for providers to share results across facilities and teams, which reduces delays and ensures patients aren’t asked to repeat tests simply because data wasn’t accessible.

Usability is equally important. Systems should support multilingual access, mobile-friendly design, and clear explanations of clinical information so patients with different levels of digital literacy can understand what their results mean. Technology should remove friction from the care journey. Data that flows smoothly between providers — offering patients easy access to information they can understand — naturally makes healthcare more equitable.

Cameron Behar, Co-Founder and CTO at Sprinter Health
For decades, healthcare has operated on a necessary compromise: standardization in exchange for scale. Stock messages, uniform workflows, and averaged assumptions about patient needs, constraints, and preferences worked for most, but not all. Accounting for an individual’s unique circumstances was too slow and expensive. But the promise of modern AI isn’t just automation; it’s the end of that tradeoff.

Given clear goals and the right primitives, agentic systems can reason through novel patient situations without a specific feature having been built for them. They can learn context directly from patients through conversation, sidestepping the digital literacy barriers that traditional interfaces impose, and incorporate that context into care workflows in real time. The populations with the most complex, nonstandard circumstances no longer have to wait for their needs to make the product roadmap. Contextual intelligence offers the opportunity to turn good intentions around equity into operational reality.

Chris Santas, General Manager, Price Transparency and Search at MacroHealth
Can you imagine buying products on Amazon without knowing the prices? That is how most care is purchased today in the U.S. A patient goes to a clinic, a doctor’s office, or a hospital, and may check reviews, but there are usually few options to see the price of the care they’re about to receive. That’s changing. Health IT solutions are using mandated healthcare price-transparency data from health systems not only to optimize costs for health plans but also to share that data directly with patients. Healthcare is expensive. And any window into understanding the cost of care before making a healthcare decision improves the patient experience while also forcing the industry to adopt more streamlined, affordable pricing.

Jeanne Cohen, CEO at Motive Medical Intelligence
After 20 years of value-based care, it’s time to deliver on its promise, and technology and innovation are aiding progress. Patient experience and cost efficiency are not competing priorities — they are the same goal. By equipping clinicians with real-time, data-driven insights and a shared, standardized view of what ‘appropriateness care’ looks like, we can reduce unnecessary variation, eliminate waste, and ensure patients get the right care at the right time. That’s what patients feel: fewer delays, clearer communication, and care that actually makes sense — along with the confidence to take a more active role in their health. Technology is the catalyst, but the outcome is a system that is simpler to navigate, more consistent, and truly centered on the patient.

Karin Hayes, Senior Vice President, Analytics Products and Services at OptimizeRx
As healthcare becomes increasingly digital, disparities in digital literacy, device access, and connectivity risk leaving certain populations behind, creating a gap between what treatments are available and what patients can access. Nowhere is this more true than in accessing life-saving therapies.

For life sciences marketers, effective strategies to address these disparities go beyond broad assumptions to understand how specific patient populations engage with health information, what motivates them to act, what barriers they face, and the channels they prefer. This allows organizations to deliver more targeted, actionable communication through the patient journey. Technology is accelerating this shift and helping life sciences organizations close critical gaps in care.

For example, predictive analytics can anticipate future patient milestones to activate more personalized communications across both clinical workflows and digital channels. These timely, relevant communications can motivate patients to act sooner and help ensure prescribers are informed and prepared to treat. This coordinated approach drives more meaningful patient action, strengthens clinical readiness, and ultimately leads to improved engagement and better outcomes across diverse populations.

Eric Makovskey, EVP, Solutions at Tendo
One of the biggest barriers to equitable care is that health systems often lack visibility into where access challenges exist across different patient populations. Technology can help close that gap by bringing together data that highlights disparities in access, engagement, and outcomes. When organizations can identify where patients face barriers—whether related to geography, language, or socioeconomic factors—they can take more targeted action to improve access and support. The goal is not just to digitize healthcare, but to ensure that technology helps health systems reach patients more effectively and deliver care in ways that are accessible and inclusive.

Gokul Mohan, CEO at CareHarmony
Technology has a real opportunity to improve health equity, but only if it’s designed with the realities of diverse patient populations in mind. One of the biggest risks is relying on a one-size-fits-all approach, where digital tools assume every patient has the same access, preferences, or level of support. That kind of “cookie-cutter” care can actually widen gaps instead of closing them.

One of the most important roles technology plays is enabling more personalized, context-aware care. By incorporating social determinants of health alongside clinical and claims data, organizations can better understand the full picture of each patient. This allows care teams to tailor interventions based on individual needs, whether that means adjusting outreach methods, addressing barriers like transportation or food access, or aligning care plans with a patient’s environment and resources.

At the same time, technology alone isn’t enough. The most effective models combine data-driven insights with human care teams and flexible communication channels, so patients can engage in ways that work for them. This shift away from standardized care toward more tailored, patient-specific support is what ultimately drives more equitable outcomes. When done well, technology helps deliver the right care, in the right way, for each individual patient.

Lauren Barca, VP of Quality at 86Borders
Technology does its part in expanding access to care, especially for those patients who are harder to reach, but it can’t do it on its own. Many patients face challenges that go beyond healthcare, including transportation, housing, and language barriers. Supporting equity requires more than deploying new tools. Solutions need to be simple and easy to use, and they need to account for different levels of digital comfort. Technology can help identify needs and connect patients to resources, but real progress depends on meeting people where they are and making sure no one is left trying to figure it out alone.

Chandra Osborn, Chief Experience Officer at AdhereHealth
Technology can help close equity gaps, but only if it’s designed around how people actually live, not just how healthcare systems operate.

Forward-looking health IT solutions are using AI and behavioral insights to tailor communication based on language, preferences, and access to technology. That means meeting patients on the channels they’re comfortable with, simplifying complex health information, and identifying when someone may need more personalized support.

Importantly, technology should help care teams focus their attention where it’s needed most. By identifying patients who may be struggling – whether due to social barriers, affordability issues, or digital literacy challenges – health IT can ensure that human support is directed to the people who need it most.

Raj Ramaswamy, Chief Technology Officer at Buzz Health
Technology improves health equity when it surfaces actionable prescription options at the moment decisions are made—especially for patients navigating cost barriers, coverage confusion, or pharmacy variability. Advancing health equity isn’t just about access to care—it’s about access to understanding. Technology must simplify complexity, meet patients where they are, and empower them to make informed decisions about their health.

Jake McCarley, Co-Founder & CEO at Alluvium
Technology addresses health equity by providing enterprise intelligence that surfaces disparities in wait times, referral completion, and access patterns across patient populations, so leaders are no longer flying blind and can identify and address gaps proactively. Multi-channel access ensures all patients have equal opportunity to schedule care regardless of digital literacy, whether through web, mobile, or call centers, all seeing the same unified real-time availability across the entire network, including underserved geographic regions. The ability to allow for 24/7 scheduling removes barriers for shift workers and those unable to book during traditional business hours, while language customization options adapt to diverse community needs.

Casey Williams, Senior Vice President – Engagement, Analytics, and Payment Applications at RevSpring
Technology plays an important role in advancing health equity by helping healthcare organizations better understand the financial needs of diverse patient populations. By using data and analytics to personalize outreach, payment options, and financial assistance, healthcare staff can make conversations about cost of care more empathetic and aligned with each patient’s circumstances in an important step to address affordability barriers. Digital engagement tools that support multiple communication and payment channels, from text to phone to traditional methods, also help ensure accessibility for patients with varying levels of digital literacy. Ultimately, the goal is to use technology to meet patients where they are and make it easier to access and navigate care.

Dr. Joshua Tamayo-Sarver, MD, PhD, FACEP, FAMIA, Vice President of Innovation at Vituity & Inflect Health
Healthcare faces enormous cost pressure and persistent inefficiencies. While standardization is essential for improving efficiency, healthcare is also deeply personal. As systems become more standardized, many patients feel unseen or dehumanized, especially those from less-represented demographics or perspectives. When patients feel unseen, trust erodes. At the same time, rigid standardization on the supply side often forces patients to absorb the complexity of navigating the system, adapting themselves to how healthcare delivers services rather than the other way around. This creates a powerful opportunity for technology.

Technology can act as an intermediary between individual clinicians and an inflexible healthcare system. We’re seeing early examples through ambient and agentic tools for documentation, workflow, and administrative tasks. By lifting this burden from frontline staff, clinicians are free to focus on the person in front of them.

There is also promise to translate a patient’s context, concerns, and goals into the system while helping patients manage scheduling, insurance approvals, medication management, and denials. The beauty of today’s technology advances is that we can have a very bespoke experience and delivery mechanism for the patient on one side, with a very standardized experience for the health system on the other side.

As Maya Angelou noted, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” The goal is to return the focus of healthcare to the very human interaction of one person caring for another, while the technology puts in the hard work to make sure all the million other important things happen effortlessly in the background.

What great points to consider here! Huge thank you to everyone who took the time out of their day to submit a quote to us! And thank you to all of you for taking the time out of your day to read this article! We could not do this without all of your support.

What role do you think technology plays in addressing health equity, accessibility, and digital literacy among diverse patient populations? Let us know over on social media, we’d love to hear from all of you!

Here’s a preview of the topics and trends we discuss in this episode:

• Health IT budgets are shrinking.
• Vendor consolidation is still a high priority for CIOs.
• Value-based care is the key to rural health’s success and survival.
• Healthcare AI will not replace people.

Now, without further ado, we’re excited to share with you the next episode of the Healthcare IT Today podcast.

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The conversation around AI in healthcare is changing. What was once seen as overhyped is now being evaluated in more practical terms.

According to athenahealth’s 2025 Physician Sentiment Survey, fewer physicians now view AI as overhyped, and fewer believe it will make healthcare more complicated. The focus is shifting toward where AI can deliver value within existing workflows.

In larger health systems, that shift is already translating into action. These organizations have the scale, data, and resources to invest in AI and are beginning to see measurable impact across operations and care delivery. UnitedHealthcare’s recent launch of an AI chatbot for round-the-clock care navigation is one example of the customer-facing AI tools now operational at that scale.

Adoption is Early, but Direction is Clear

For small and mid-sized physician practices, AI adoption is more limited, but activity is increasing. Interest is high, and many practices are already experimenting with tools like ChatGPT and Claude to support documentation, communication, and internal workflows. The challenge now is moving from experimentation to practical, everyday use.

Much of that path runs through the EMR. Most small and mid-sized practices rely on a single electronic medical record (EMR) system to manage scheduling, documentation, and billing – the operational backbone of the business. As a result, AI evaluation often starts there: what is the EMR vendor introducing, and how can new capabilities be layered into systems already in use rather than built from scratch?

Where AI is Delivering Value in Healthcare Today

Practical AI adoption for today’s healthcare practices is largely concentrated in a few areas.

Clinical documentation is one of the clearest examples. AI-based scribing tools can listen during patient visits, transcribe conversations, and generate structured notes directly within the EMR. That reduces the time providers spend on documentation and allows them to stay focused during the visit.

The impact is operational as much as clinical. When documentation is handled more efficiently, providers can often see additional patients during the day. Even a small increase in patient volume can have a measurable impact on revenue in a private practice setting. Seeing just one or two more patients per day can translate into thousands of dollars in additional revenue.

This matters in an environment where practices are operating as small businesses, often competing within the constraints of their local healthcare economy. Reimbursement rates, payer mix, and cost structures vary significantly by region. Recent data from the Medical Group Management Association reflects that pressure, with nearly half of medical group leaders reporting declining operating margins year over year. In that context, even modest gains in efficiency can make a difference.

Administrative workflows are another area where AI is starting to make a difference. Many practices continue to rely heavily on phone-based communication. Patient calls to schedule appointments, ask questions, and follow up on care create consistent pressure on front desk staff.

AI voice tools focused on call handling and intake are beginning to address that demand. They route calls more efficiently, automate common interactions, and reduce the volume of routine requests that require staff involvement. In some cases, this allows practices to manage higher patient volume without adding headcount or to ease pressure on existing staff.

These improvements are incremental, but they have a direct impact on patient experience and practice revenue.

A Growing Set of Options and Questions

As use cases become clearer, the number of available solutions has grown quickly. Healthcare AI spending reached approximately $1.4 billion in 2025, nearly tripling year-over-year, fueling a rapid influx of new tools entering the market. 

For small and mid-sized practices, evaluating those options can be difficult. Most do not have the internal resources to compare vendors, assess long-term viability, or fully understand how a tool will integrate into their existing systems.

This creates friction in the decision-making process and can lead to missed opportunities to serve more patients.

Practices are working to determine which tools will improve operations and which may introduce unnecessary complexity or risk. Data privacy and security remain a central concern. Research shows that nearly 70% of healthcare leaders say these issues are a major barrier to AI adoption.

At the same time, the EMR continues to shape what is possible. As EMR vendors introduce their own AI capabilities, many practices are starting there. This approach simplifies adoption, but it also makes vendor security and risk management more important over time.

Balancing Efficiency with Risk

Each new AI tool introduced into a clinical environment raises questions about how patient data is handled, where it’s stored, and how it integrates with existing systems. In a healthcare setting, those questions carry real weight. According to IBM, healthcare continues to experience the highest cost of data breaches of any industry, reflecting both the sensitivity and value of the data involved.

Recent events have reinforced that risk. The cyberattack on Change Healthcare disrupted claims processing across the country, impacting providers of all sizes and highlighting how vulnerabilities in third-party systems can quickly cascade into operational and financial challenges for smaller practices.

AI adds another layer to that risk. Many of the tools entering the market rely on access to clinical data and integrate directly with core systems like the EMR. For smaller practices, that creates a practical challenge. The same tools that promise efficiency can also introduce new exposures if they are not properly evaluated, particularly when AI vendors are early in their development or lack a proven track record in healthcare.

Where IT Partners Fit In

As the pace of AI development continues to increase (workforce access to AI tools has expanded by 50% in just one year, according to Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise 2026 report), healthcare practices need a trusted guide to help them capture the value responsibly. That’s where IT partners like Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) play a key role.

IT support has traditionally focused on reactively maintaining digital systems and resolving issues. That remains important, but practices now need an IT partner who can chart AI adoption in the context of their growth goals. IT and security are no longer just back-office functions, but a key part of helping physician practices operate without disruption.

Selecting and implementing AI tools requires strategic context. MSPs and MSSPs can help practices evaluate AI vendors, understand tradeoffs, and reduce the risk to each individual practice.

This includes assessing how a solution fits into the existing environment, identifying potential security concerns, and helping prioritize which use cases to pursue. In a crowded market, that guidance helps practices move forward with greater clarity.

For small and mid-size practices, the strategic use of AI has a chance to revolutionize patient care, while improving margins and opening up expansion opportunities. Without the right support, many practices will struggle to fully realize the potential of AI.

About Chris Knotts

Chris Knotts is the Founder and CEO at PEAKE Technology Partners, now part of the Omega Systems family of companies. Together, PEAKE and Omega deliver integrated IT and security solutions to healthcare organizations across the Northeast, helping multi-site medical practices navigate EHR management, AI-driven tools, and HIPAA and HITECH compliance. Drawing on his background as a technology innovator and business leader, Chris has built a reputation for helping healthcare organizations use technology to expand access to quality care, strengthen culture, streamline workflows, and support the financial health of their practices. In addition to its managed services, PEAKE helps healthcare organizations evaluate and adopt emerging AI technologies through its PEAKE AI Lab, where tools are vetted for real-world EHR integration, rapid staff adoption, and proven success in medical practice environments.

Swoop’s portfolio of solutions enables life sciences companies to reach the right patients and healthcare providers (HCPs), accelerate therapy adoption, and drive meaningful real-world outcomes while maintaining the highest standards of privacy and compliance. This acquisition strengthens Swoop’s ability to improve patient outcomes by connecting aggregated insights and privacy-safe technologies to determine patient needs.

“Nimble accelerates our ability to connect the signals that drive patient and physician behavior directly to real-world action,” said Swoop CEO and Co-Founder, Ron Elwell. “By bringing prescription fulfillment into Swoop, we are extending our platform beyond engagement to impact — helping life sciences companies improve patient outcomes.”

Accelerating Improved Patient Outcomes with Privacy-Safe Solutions

Through a powerful product suite, Nimble accelerates the health journey by helping patients start treatment without delays and stay on the therapy programs prescribed by their doctors without disruption. Its platform simplifies prescription access and improves fulfillment efficiency. With Swoop’s reach and resources now supporting Nimble, pharmacies on the platform will benefit from stronger patient engagement, and patients will receive more consistent support.

“Independent pharmacies are where patient care gets real — they’re the last mile between a prescription and a patient who actually stays on therapy,” said Talha Sattar, Founder and CEO at Nimble. “Joining Swoop gives Nimble pharmacies a meaningful edge in closing that gap, and that’s good for their business and good for the patients who depend on them.”

Adding Nimble advances Swoop’s position as the only integrated ecosystem built to connect patients and HCPs with the right information to improve health outcomes. Swoop’s footprint now spans audience intelligence, community engagement, AI-powered web solutions, coordinated omnichannel activation, and prescription management.

“Nimble extends Swoop into prescription fulfillment and adherence. By using privacy-safe, consented, and aggregated signals to indicate patient needs, we can help consumers move beyond awareness to action,” said Swoop President, Scott Rines. “By integrating these real-time pharmacy signals into our broader engagement ecosystem, we can further help life sciences companies deliver stronger health and commercial outcomes.”

This expansion marks the next step in Swoop’s evolution, strengthening its ability to connect HCP and patient marketing channels, improve patient outcomes, and deliver measurable commercial impact during moments that matter most.

About Swoop

Swoop improves patient outcomes by connecting the signals that drive earlier diagnosis, better treatment decisions, and sustained adherence. The integrated, privacy-by-design platform enables life sciences companies to drive measurable patient and commercial outcomes with actionable intelligence — spanning patient and HCP audience targeting, community engagement, AI-powered web solutions, coordinated omnichannel activation, and prescription fulfillment.

About Nimble, a Swoop company

Nimble, a Swoop company, enables people to live their best lives by improving access, understanding, and management of their healthcare. The technology helps independent and regional pharmacies deliver the best possible care to their communities by modernizing pharmacy workflows. It simplifies everything from mobile checkout and prescription fills/refills to patient communications. By dismantling the barriers to consistent care, Nimble’s digital interventions drive significant impact, improving medication adherence by 26-40 percent while freeing pharmacists from busy work so they can spend more time on patient care.

As part of Swoop’s privacy-by-design approach, Nimble’s prescription fulfillment data integrates into an exclusive commercial intelligence layer. These signals enable life sciences companies to accelerate therapy adoption, support long-term adherence, and drive measurable impact across the treatment lifecycle.

Originally announced May 26th, 2026

Surveys

• An Innovaccer report found health systems that respond to scheduling inquiries after 24 hours convert fewer than 10% to appointments, with each lost interaction representing nearly $300 in lost revenue over the next 12 months.
• A Medidata survey found 73% of life sciences organizations with AI in place for at least 18 months have shortened the timeline for clinical trials. More than two-thirds also reported a reduction in protocol deviations.
• A rater8 survey found 37% of consumers trust AI overviews most when using Google searches to research doctors, compared to 20% for organic results and 13% for the local map pack.
• A Tebra survey found 45% of patients would let an AI assistant fill out their intake forms, though only 34% would let AI read their entire medical record.
• A Vivalink survey found 72% of patients with acute conditions are comfortable using RPM devices at home, while 75% are confident that RPM devices can accurately track health data.
• A Wolters Kluwer Health survey found 74% of clinicians are worried increasing overreliance on AI tools will reduce their skills and ability to independently identify inaccuracies or poor recommendations.

Partnerships

• Clinical research workflow automation technology from Causaly is now integrated with Microsoft Discovery. In addition, Mayo Clinic and Microsoft are partnering to develop and deploy a frontier AI model designed specifically for healthcare.
• Vida Health has partnered with Instacart to connect its members to category-specific grocery stipends linked to Vida’s nutrition advice.

Products

• AssureCare launched NutraVance to help incorporate nutrition into care management workflows.
• athenahealth added AI features for RCM into athenaOne, including a voice agent.
• Enzo Health launched Enzo EHR, an AI-native EHR for home health agencies.
• Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas updated AeroRemote Insights, it analytics and monitoring platform for digital radiography.
• NewVue added AI-driven reporting to Radiologist Cockpit, its platform for radiology interpretation.
• PointClickCare launched Advisor, a suite of workflow automation tools for skilled nursing providers.
• Healthcare supply chain management company Tecsys announced AI and agentic capabilities.
• TeleTracking Technologies introduced Operations IQ Ambulatory, bringing outpatient access and referral management to its Operations IQ platform.
• Ubie announced Ubie Self-Serve, an advertising platform for media buyers and pharmaceutical companies.
• Yunu announced De-ID & Export to help clinical trial sites anonymize and export trial images and results from existing workflows.

Implementations

• North Carolina-based Anuvia Prevention & Recovery Center selected AvaSure and VirtuAlly to support its virtual nursing program for substance use and behavioral health treatment.
• Mount Sinai Health System selected Clarium to support surgical supply management.
• France’s Rouen University Hospital selected Live Intelligence by Orange Business to provide an accessible and secure generative AI platform.
• Shriners Children’s selected ShiftMed to build on-demand talent pools across its locations.

Company News

• AccurKardia was granted a U.S. patent for technology that reads ECGs to potentially identifying cardiac amyloidosis, a buildup of abnormal proteins in the heart.
• Buzz Health earned HITRUST certified status for the six platforms of its prescription technology infrastructure.
• Cotiviti’s Quality Intelligence achieved Digital HEDIS Certification from NCQA for Measurement Year 2025.
• OrthAlign announced FDA clearance for Lantern ASC, a portable system for supporting hip and knee procedures.

People

• Clinical revenue integrity company Accuity named Hannah Hartung as Chief Operating Officer.
• Care and pharmacy navigation company Transcarent announced Anjali Jameson as Chief Product Officer.
• Independent medical practice software maker AdvancedMD appointed Stephanie Cho as Chief Marketing Officer.

If you have news that you’d like us to consider for a future edition of Healthcare IT Today Bonus Features, please submit them on this page. Please include any relevant links and let us know if news is under embargo. Note that submissions received after the close of business on Thursday may not be included in Bonus Features until the following week.

Continuous Risk Monitoring Is Transforming Revenue Integrity Amid Rising Audits. MDaudit CEO Ritesh Ramesh joined John Lynn to outline how proactive monitoring and AI-driven auditing helps organizations prevent major financial and compliance issues. Read more…

Stop Forcing Patients Into Decision Trees. Gary Moorefield at MyCare Medical sat down with Colin Hung to discuss deploying healow Genie, which can adapt to the many reasons a patient may call a practice and remove friction that’s common with interactive voice response. Read more…

Why Healthcare AI Success Starts With a Bias Toward Action. AI tools need to solve a real problem and generate ROI, and health systems may need to redefine how and when they calculate AI’s ROI, John learned in a conversation with leaders at three organizations. Read more…

Integrating Patient-Generated Data Into Clinical Workflows. The Healthcare IT Today community said surfacing the right signals at the right time in existing clinical applications, and consolidating them into a single record, can bring benefits for care coordination as well as administration. Read more…

Ensuring Patients Have Secure, Meaningful Access to Their Data. This is a critical issue for the industry. Recommendations from the Healthcare IT Today community included data governance, patient-centered design, open API architecture, and zero-trust security principles. Read more…

Improving the Patient Experience Across Access, Communication, and Continuity of Care. We also asked the Healthcare IT Today experts what it takes to make this happen. Answers included focusing on care coordination, price transparency, seamless movement of data, and self-scheduling. Read more…

MUSE 2026: The Magic of a User-Led Conference. Colin reported from the event by and for MEDITECH users, who were talking about pushing AI scribes into operational use cases and meeting with MEDITECH integration partners. Read more…

Life Sciences Today Podcast: Design Backwards From Commercialization. Danny Lieberman talked to Theo Mastrokostopoulos at Pleo Flow about starting with what you sell and who will buy it instead of building technology first. Read more…

CIO Podcast: Healthcare Communication. John Gaede at rural New Mexico’s San Juan Regional Medical Center joined John to talk about implementing PerfectServe and emphasizing communication as part of digital transformation. Read more…

Healthcare Automation Isn’t About Replacing Staff. Context switching in clinical workflows leads to delays, distraction errors, mental fatigue, and a steady buildup of friction, noted Kevin Minassian at Datascan Pharmacy Software. Focusing on automation within those workflows offers an important remedy. Read more…

How to Manage Unexpected Vulnerabilities, Contain Cyberattacks, and Protect Patient Safety. Dr. Jaushin Lee at Zentera Systems discussed securing overlooked attack vectors such as building controls and operational infrastructure with the help of zero-trust architecture. Read more…

Rethinking Clinical Documentation Integrity Strategy. Automated reviews, retrospective audits, and medical necessity requirements are increasing denial volumes. Organizations can respond by ensuring documentation captured during the stay holds up to payer scrutiny, said Amanda Dean at AGS Health. Read more…

The Payment Integrity Reckoning. When it comes to health plan finances, identified savings and realized savings are not the same thing, noted Mark Noel at AMPS. Addressing the issue requires a transparent, case-specific approach to managing payment integrity. Read more…

AI, Robotics, and Connectivity Are Reshaping the Operating Room. A strong technology foundation is critical for scaling robotic surgery, according to Chu Canh Chieu at FPT Software. Video infrastructure, low-latency connectivity, and data governance set the stage for using cutting-edge tools. Read more…

This Week’s Health IT Jobs for June 3, 2026: Ohio-based Summa Health is looking for a CIO. Read more…

Bonus Features for May 31, 2026: 1 in 8 medical practices have deployed an AI receptionist; Teladoc Health teams up with Walmart. Read more…

Funding and M&A Activity:

• RCM platform Commure announced $70 million in financing.
• RCM intelligence vendor Anomaly Insights announced $17 million in new funding.
• Real-world data abstraction startup Century Health announced an oversubscribed $5 million seed round.
• Payment accuracy platform Rialtic is merging with Exponential AI, a claims decision intelligence company.

Thanks for reading and be sure to check out our latest Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundups.

You may need to click here to see the full image.  Are you worried about losing your job to AI?  This is a nice twist on the Henry Ford quote about asking for faster horses.

This humor is a commentary on AI chatbots. (Meme circulating widely on the Web.) pic.twitter.com/Zys7BVquUq

— Cliff Pickover (@pickover) May 20, 2026

This one is pretty brutal from a healthcare perspective since what we’re asking AI often can have life and death consequences.  I see most healthcare AI putting in really good guardrails.  However, consumers are often not waiting for a healthcare specific solution, so we’re going to have some really bad outcomes a long the way.

I find this worry from the younger generation quite interesting.  I’ve seen some of it in my kids who talk about them and their friends kind of kicking against AI.  I have a lot of thoughts about it all, but it’s going to be really interesting to see it play out. That said, I don’t think there’s anything that can stop it.  The reality is that AI is going to be in our future.  It’s mostly a question of in what form and fashion.  What’s your view on it?

Have a great weekend and join us back here next week for more great healthcare IT contennt.

Check out the main topics of discussion for this episode of the Life Sciences Today podcast:

• Tell us about your journey to Pleo Flow.
• A lot of companies say, ‘Let’s collect some clinical data, let’s see what we have, then we’ll see.’ But you believe in what you sell, how you price it, and who buys it as a way to feed the product design from day one. Do you think your way is the best way?
• How do you create value for the patients, the physicians, and the company?
• How do you capture value? How do you price it?
• What are your plans for 2026 with Pleo Flow? What are three things you want to do for your patients?
• For cardiovascular devices, what is the biggest anti-pattern in this industry?
• This is not a statistically valid number, but you do have your own sample – what percentage of MedTech startups fall on the sword of Damocles of this anti-pattern?

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Key Takeaways

• Healthcare automation works best when it eases workflow pressure instead of trying to replace pharmacy staff
• A lot of the value of automation comes from taking over repetitive admin work, allowing the staff to focus on patient care and other higher-value tasks

When people normally talk about automation in healthcare, the conversation often jumps to labor savings and the idea that software will replace the people doing the work.

That framing misses the fact that in many healthcare settings, especially independent pharmacies, the problem is that for the staff, too much of their day is spent on repetitive, fragmented work that takes attention away from the patients.

And so when people talk about automation replacing staff, what they really miss is the unique difference in roles that both humans and systems play, and how automation can actually make the healthcare operations more efficient, without replacing staff.

Let’s discuss why automation should not be viewed as a substitute for human expertise, but as a tool that allows healthcare professionals to focus on higher-value patient care.

Why Busy Work Isn’t Productive Work

Currently, the average workflow is plagued by what we call context switching. A staff member starts to process a claim, only to have the system flag a missing prior authorization.

They might have to stop their current task, log into a different portal to check coverage, place a call to the prescriber’s office, and set the prescription aside to wait for a call back.

Each time they do this or have to work around disconnected processes is time they don’t spend on patient communication and other forms of problem-solving that require human judgment.

On top of that, all that context switching leads to delays, distraction errors, mental fatigue, and a steady buildup of friction.

Using Automation as a Workflow Buffer

The problems associated with all that busy work and context switching come from requiring humans to do machine work.

But an effective automation system can act as a silent operator in the background, handling the binary rule-based tasks that typically trigger context switching.

With the same previous scenario applied to this case, instead of the staff member having to stop what they are doing and log into a third-party portal when they hit a wall, the automation has already pinged the insurer, verified the requirements, and flagged the necessary documentation while the prescription was still in the intake queue.

All this does is to remove the unnecessary or mechanical parts of the job, but it does not remove the person from the process. It simply gives staff more room to focus on the parts of the pharmacy that actually require judgment, effective communication, and care.

Why You Should Focus on Integration Instead

If the goal of automation is to support staff rather than replace them (which it should be), then the usability of that technology is a strategic necessity.

The problem in healthcare is that many owners of these independent pharmacies, even leaders of these organizations, focus on features and vendor promises instead of asking whether the system actually reduces friction in the daily workflow.

Poorly integrated automation will just trade one type of machine work for another. The new systems should not make a professional’s job harder or more disjointed. Instead, it should fit the existing ecosystem.

This is especially a common issue among some business owners in the healthcare industry who get excited about the possibility of cutting labor costs by turning to feature-heavy automation systems. This will just hurt your business by:

• Adding more steps instead of removing them
• Creating more training burdens for pharmacists and technicians
• Slowing down routine tasks that should have been simpler
• Raising the risk of avoidable errors caused by fragmentation
• Accelerating staff burnout
• Diverting attention away from patient interactions and prescription accuracy
• Automating the existing chaos without actually fixing the workflow

However, by focusing on integration, you’ll have systems that work together with your staff to make your operations more efficient while improving patient care and prescription accuracy.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How does automation specifically prevent distraction errors?
  • It handles repetitive data-matching so pharmacists can maintain a single, focused line of thought during clinical verification
• If we don’t reduce staff, how do we justify the cost of automation?
  • ROI comes from increased capacity, allowing your existing team to handle higher volumes and revenue-generating clinical services
• Is it difficult to integrate these silent systems into older pharmacy software?
  • Not at all; modern solutions use background integrations that talk to your existing CMS without requiring staff to change their login habits
• Will patients notice a difference if we automate more of the back-end work?
  • Yes, because wait times drop significantly, and staff can focus on face-to-face counseling instead of being tethered to a computer terminal

About Kevin Minassian

Kevin Minassian is President at Datascan Pharmacy Software. Datascan is one of the few family-owned pharmacy software vendors left in the United States today. They have been focused on retail pharmacy software dating back to 1981, and are passionate about working with clients to continually build a better product, build a strong service-oriented team, and make sure that independent pharmacies can offer more to their patients than the local chains.

Commure, the AI platform for healthcare, today announced $70 million in financing at a $7 billion post-money valuation. The round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Morgan Stanley, and Kirkland & Ellis.

Commure deploys advanced AI and Agents across health systems and practices, transforming the day-to-day lives of providers and healthcare administrators. The company is focused on one of the largest cost centers in healthcare worldwide: administrative work, which consumes roughly $1 trillion a year in the U.S. alone and burdens health systems globally.

Healthcare AI Deployed at Unparalleled Scale

Commure’s revenue cycle management platform and advanced clinical workflow tools operate within more than 500 healthcare organizations across 3,000+ sites of care, embedded in the daily workflows of tens of thousands of physicians. Over 130 of the nation’s largest health systems, including HCA Healthcare and Tenet Healthcare, use the platform alongside thousands of physician-owned practices across the country.

The company’s end-to-end RCM processes tens of billions of dollars in annual payments and completes more than 85% of work without human intervention. Its Ambient AI suite, featuring Autonomous Coding and Clinical Intelligence, supports tens of millions of appointments each year.

“For thirty years, healthcare was told software would fix administrative work. It didn’t, because software could not actually do the work: the calls, the notes, the codes, the claims, the denials, and the appeals,” said Tanay Tandon, CEO at Commure. “AI can. We are already performing this work, from specialty clinics to the country’s largest health systems. With this round, we can meet the demand to run it everywhere.”‍

To support that expansion, the capital will be used to:

• Scale Commure’s revenue cycle and practice management platform across specialty practices, hospitals, and integrated delivery networks, replacing the legacy mix of BPO services, billing vendors, and rules-based software that has run the industry for decades
• Advance the shared intelligence layer beneath every Commure workflow, pushing the frontier on agentic systems so AI can reliably handle the payer rules, specialty coding, denial patterns, and clinical context that general-purpose models miss
• Expand Commure’s AI infrastructure into global healthcare markets where providers face the same structural pressure: rising demand, workforce shortages, administrative burden, and the need for more efficient clinical and financial operations

An AI-Native Platform for the Next Era of Healthcare

“Healthcare is one of the largest sectors of economies worldwide and one of the most important to rebuild with AI,” said Hemant Taneja, CEO at General Catalyst. “Commure is doing it not as a feature or co-pilot, but as a system of agents completing administrative and clinical work in fundamentally modern ways. This is a generational business with the opportunity to dramatically impact the cost of care.”

Commure, and its subsidiary Athelas, delivers AI across the front, middle, and back of the revenue cycle, helping healthcare organizations automate administrative work while giving clinicians time back to care.

About Commure

Commure delivers next-generation AI infrastructure for health systems, integrating ambient workflows, agentic AI, and revenue cycle automation on a single platform. Its Forward Deployed Engineering teams work directly with clinicians and administrators to boost margins, reduce burden, and improve patient engagement. Commure runs inside more than 500 healthcare organizations across 3,000+ sites of care, integrates with 60+ EHRs, and processes tens of billions of dollars in annual claims — with 85%+ of revenue cycle work completed without a human in the loop. Learn more at commure.com.

About Athelas

Athelas, a Commure company, provides AI-native infrastructure for modern healthcare, specializing in revenue cycle management, ambient AI, and FDA-cleared AI-powered diagnostics that streamline operations and improve patient outcomes. Learn more at athelas.com.

Originally announced May 19th, 2026