In 2025, health interoperability advanced through widespread FHIR adoption, new CMS frameworks, and deeper integration with AI and virtual healthcare. This year marked a turning point for interoperability, shifting from compliance-driven to innovation-driven, enabling real-time, secure data exchange across systems and patient-facing apps.
As healthcare continues its digital evolution, the promise of truly connected care depends on one thing: interoperability. In 2026, data sharing will no longer purely be a technical challenge; rather, it will be a strategic imperative driving care coordination, innovation, and patient empowerment. Yet, achieving seamless data exchange across systems, organizations, and ecosystems remains our lifelong work in progress. What will 2026 bring us when it comes to interoperability? We asked our experts what progress they think we will see in 2026. Here is what they had to say.
And check out all our prediction posts looking to 2026.
Chris Bayham, Chief Operating Officer, Xsolis
LinkedIn: Chris Bayham
In 2026, interoperability will move from buzzword to foundational imperative. True innovation depends on our ability to connect data across systems, organizations, and ecosystems in a way that empowers patients and supports smarter, more coordinated care. The next wave of progress won’t come from generating more data or insights and hoarding it; it will come from making this information available to stakeholders throughout the care continuum, where they can act on such insights in existing clinical or financial workflows, securely, transparently, and in real time.
Christy Bricker, VP of Strategic Services, Murj
LinkedIn: Christy (Jacks) Bricker, CPHIMS
In 2026, the interoperability conversation will shift from technical connectivity to strategic data curation. For years, the focus has been on building the pipes between systems, but the real barrier to connected care is the quality of the data flowing through them. Legacy environments contain inconsistent data created by years of manual entry and limited validation. For example, in some cardiac clinics’ databases error rates can reach up to 50 percent, and only 40 to 60 percent of listed patients may be active. Simply connecting these bloated and inaccurate systems does not create value; it amplifies risk and inefficiency. Data clean-up is a 2026 health system IT imperative with a focus on true data readiness. Organizations that succeed will invest in expert-led processes that clean, validate, and migrate only the accurate and clinically relevant information needed to support care teams and patients.
Fawad Butt, CEO and Co-founder, Penguin Ai
LinkedIn: Fawad Butt
Healthcare’s interoperability challenge is finally meeting its moment. As FHIR and new CMS mandates take hold, we’ll see the shift from batch updates to real-time, API-driven data sharing between patients, providers, and payers. Since AI intelligence is only as strong as the data that fuels it, governance and interoperability must operate as one discipline for AI to scale safely.
William Charnetski, Executive VP, Health System Solutions and Government Affairs, PointClickCare
LinkedIn: William Charnetski
In 2026, interoperability will move from aspiration to expectation. We will see greater alignment between public and private sectors around shared data standards and governance models that make health information easily accessible, usable, and trustworthy. The future of interoperability will be defined by how effectively health systems connect and apply data to deliver exceptional care. When every clinician, regardless of setting, can access the right information at the right time, healthcare will become safer, more equitable, and more efficient.
Ed Chidsey, President of Insights Business Unit, Inovalon
LinkedIn: Ed Chidsey
This year, CMS announced an Interoperability Framework and progress toward a national provider directory, which will push interoperability from an aspirational goal into a purchasing requirement across the healthcare ecosystem in 2026. While different parts of the healthcare ecosystem will prioritize different areas to focus on their interoperability investments, the important thing will be to set themselves up to all work together in sharing data across workflows and disciplines; provider organizations will focus on points like machine learning based extraction for clinical decision support, payers on claims processing, and life sciences on high-quality linked datasets for clinical trial design and execution. Overall, interoperability will shift from being a compliance topic to a fundamental component of market readiness.
Aisling Cunningham, Global Product Manager, Clinical Solutions, CenTrak
LinkedIn: Aisling Cunningham
Accelerated adoption of a “single glass pane” system
Looking ahead to 2026, the RTLS landscape will fundamentally shift toward infrastructure-less, lighter-touch solutions. Healthcare needs scalable solutions that don’t require heavy infrastructure investments that are accompanied by large costs and complex and onerous deployment cycles. The era of managing 50 different point solutions is over. We’ll see this even more clearly in the new year. Most CIOs now have vendor consolidation and platform unification as a top strategic priority. This means 2026 will be the year where interoperability isn’t just a feature, it’s table stakes. The winners will be those offering systems that integrate seamlessly into existing healthcare ecosystems with low costs, minimal infrastructure footprint, and contribute to a single, comprehensive solution rather than being yet another standalone tool requiring its own integration effort. This will massively reduce burden on the end users by unifying data and workflows. Overall, 2026 will be a year where interoperability maturity, easy scalability, single pane of glass experience, and deep integrated partnerships with those key strategic players in the healthcare technology space will be essential differentiators, for both healthcare systems and technology innovators.
Anthony Cusimano, Solutions Director, Object First
LinkedIn: Anthony Cusimano
Healthcare will face a high volume of cyberattacks in 2026. In both education and healthcare, one of the greatest cybersecurity vulnerabilities lies in the challenge of integrating legacy systems with modern digital infrastructure. These sectors often operate on a patchwork of technologies, such as mainframes for patient records or student information systems, SaaS platforms for scheduling or learning management, and custom-built tools for diagnostics or administrative tasks that rarely interoperate. This lack of integration creates security silos, inconsistent authentication and logging, and fragmented backup protocols, all of which increase the attack surface. Compounding the issue, many institutions still rely on outdated tape backups or under-tested cloud appliances, leading to slow recovery times and compliance risks. As these sectors modernize, the inability to securely bridge old and new systems without introducing complexity or gaps in protection will come to a head in 2026, creating a major cybersecurity concern that bad actors will undoubtedly exploit.
Katie Devlin, DHSc, MS, CPHIMS, Vice President, Enterprise Data Strategy and AI Solutions, Cotiviti, Inc.
LinkedIn: Kathleen (Katie) Devlin, DHSc, MS, CPHIMS
In 2025, rising regulatory pressure and wider adoption of interoperability standards reshaped payer and provider strategies, accelerating the use of FHIR. Organizations have moved beyond basic data exchange as interoperability now underpins governance, analytics, and workflows that support better care delivery. As we enter 2026, interoperability will be critical for enabling broader deployment of data-driven tools for predictive care, chronic disease management, and personalized interventions.
As payers and providers strive to keep pace with innovation, there is also a growing emphasis on collaboration across the industry through accelerators like DaVinci’s Trebuchet pilot and the FHIR at Scale Taskforce (FAST). Seamless data exchange not only improves operational efficiency but also strengthens communication between providers, payers, and patients.
Heading into the new year, more organizations will treat interoperability as a strategic priority, one that goes beyond regulatory compliance and enhances their ability to monitor outcomes, advance population health efforts, and support emerging models of value-based care. This evolution is setting the stage for a more responsive, agile, and patient-centered healthcare ecosystem in 2026 and beyond.
Anne Donovan, Vice President and General Manager, Health Language, Wolters Kluwer Health
LinkedIn: Anne Donovan
By January 2026, the CMS Interoperability and Prior Authorization Final Rule will fundamentally reshape how payers manage prior authorization workflows. Organizations that fail to adopt automated, interoperable solutions will face significant challenges, data fragmentation, inconsistent code sets, and overwhelming manual burden. The winners in 2026 will be those who invest in data quality and terminology management. Leveraging FHIR-based terminology services will become essential for normalizing clinical data, maintaining accurate value sets, and ensuring consistent mapping across systems. This foundation will enable real-time visibility into prior authorization approvals and decision-making, allowing organizations to prioritize cases requiring deeper clinical review. The impact will be transformative: thousands of hours saved in manual work, improved interoperability, and better care and coverage decisions across the healthcare system—all while meeting CMS requirements with confidence.
David Everson, Senior Director of Solutions Marketing, Laserfiche
LinkedIn: David Everson
In 2026, emerging technologies will focus on empowering, not replacing healthcare staff. Interoperability and secure cloud infrastructure will be critical for data continuity, disaster recovery, and protection against ransomware. Agentic AI will transform documentation and care coordination, reducing burnout and enable faster follow-ups. Together, these innovations will create a more connected, resilient, and efficient healthcare system built around both performance and patient experience.
Jeffrey Eyestone, Chief Strategy & AI Officer, P-n-T Data Corp.
LinkedIn: Jeffrey Eyestone
By 2026, the narrative around interoperability must evolve from “can we connect?” to “how do we connect safely and responsibly?” For too long, achieving secure, high-quality data exchange has been conflated with data aggregation, creating centralized repositories of PHI that are prime targets for cyberattacks. This model is unsustainable as demonstrated by perpetual data security incidents. The strategic imperative for 2026 is not just to share more data, but to de-risk the very act of sharing it.
True interoperability will extend well beyond connectivity and be defined by our ability to operate as data guardians, not data owners. This requires a paradigm shift towards a federated data logistics model where information is exchanged securely and quickly, without being retained in vulnerable data silos. The technology to achieve this exists today. It enables seamless, real-time data flow across disparate systems, from X12 to HL7 and FHIR, while eliminating the retention of sensitive PHI/PII. In 2026, the measure of success won’t be the number of connections made, but the level of trust and security embedded within the fabric of our data sharing ecosystem.
Joseph Farsakh, Co-Founder & President, Helios
LinkedIn: Joseph A. Farsakh
The line between the public and private sectors is dissolving; every major company now operates inside a policy environment that changes at machine speed. The organizations that thrive will embrace true digital transformation and treat governance data such as regulations, legislation, compliance signals, as a living system to understand, not a static rule book.
Dr. Aaron Galaznik, Chief Medical Officer, MDClone
LinkedIn: Aaron Galaznik
In 2026, the real progress in interoperability will come from moving beyond data exchange to data usability. Health systems are prioritizing governed, high-quality data pipelines that make shared information trustworthy, comparable, and ready for action at the point of care. This shift will unlock smoother care coordination, stronger patient engagement, and faster innovation across the ecosystem.
Michael Gould, SVP of Interoperability Solutions, ZeOmega
LinkedIn: Michael Gould
During 2026, payers and providers will continue to prepare to meet regulatory requirements for the CMS Interoperability and Prior Authorization rule (CMS-0057) and how AI will play a role in required improvements. The CMS Interoperability Ecosystem will engage payers, providers, and other participants in a voluntary effort layered on regulation to foster collaboration that will bear fruit after 2026. Various interoperability use cases will also scale, leveraging networks and intermediaries to reduce redundancies and lower the inertia for implementation with participants of diverse services for patients, practitioners, and others providing support services relevant to improving health outcomes.
Conrad Gudmundson, Chief Commerical Officer, Lucem Health
LinkedIn: Conrad Gudmundson
In 2026, interoperability will be defined by the precision of the workflows it enables. We will see systems that actively scan patient records to detect subtle indicators, like early pancreatic cancer markers, and unify the fragmented steps of care. By connecting diagnostic ordering, result monitoring, and chart updates into a single, fluid motion, we ensure the successful initiation of treatment. Ultimately, success is no longer about the connection; it is about the accelerated diagnosis.
Patricia Hayes, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Imagine Pediatrics
LinkedIn: Patricia Hayes, MD
The future of interoperability lies in creating a connected analytics ecosystem that translates pediatric data into actionable whole-child insights. With those insights, and through integrating care across medical, behavioral, and social domains, care teams can provide proactive care that meets the lived reality of the patient and their family. In 2026, interoperability will move from basic data exchange that increases administrative burden toward a future where interoperability is the catalyst for personalized care, improved outcomes and better system efficiency.
Carol Howard, Vice President of Innovation and Adoption, Janus Health
LinkedIn: Carol Howard
Interoperability has become more than just connecting systems; it’s the foundation for understanding how the entire network works together and the impact each cohort has on patient and financial outcomes. In 2026, hospitals will increasingly combine AI and operational intelligence to uncover workflow inefficiencies, take a proactive approach to preventing denials, and continuously refine processes to drive key performance metrics. By leveraging these insights, leaders gain the visibility needed to strengthen both operational efficiency and financial performance.
Nolan Kelly, Chief Customer Officer, 1upHealth
LinkedIn: Nolan Kelly
2026 will bring us the most significant interoperability progress the industry has experienced within a calendar year due to CMS mandates on health plans. Throughout the year, we will see a massive shift across the payer space with more plans putting systems in production to automate Prior Authorization determinations without manual intervention. By the end of 2026, most health plans will be able to share data downstream to a member’s new health plan and also receive data from a member’s former health plan. The majority of providers will be able to pull full claims and clinical data directly from the health plan via on demand FHIR APIs. 2026 will be about payer-led infrastructure advancements, setting the stage for 2027!
Brian Kenah, Chief Technology Officer, EnableComp
LinkedIn: Brian Kenah
In 2026, interoperability will matter more than ever, not just to move data between systems, but to unify it in a way that makes advanced analytics and AI actually useful. Data lakes will become the new backbone of connected care, consolidating fragmented, siloed data from legacy systems and enabling hospitals to understand comprehensive payer patterns, clinical context, and revenue vulnerabilities in a single location. When interoperability is paired with a scalable data foundation, AI shifts from reactive problem-solving to true foresight.
Angel Mena, MD, Chief Clinical Officer, symplr
LinkedIn: Angel J. Mena, MD
Our 2025 Compass Survey underscores a persistent cultural gap: clinicians and corporate teams are still not fully aligned. This disconnect slows transformation, frustrates clinicians, and weakens the impact of digital initiatives. We must change this. Corporate healthcare organizations need to intentionally cultivate a clinical support mindset. Our teams must understand the realities of frontline care, appreciate the pressures clinicians face, and design solutions that elevate, not disrupt, the clinical workflow. Increasing clinician engagement in operations, IT, and strategy is essential. Likewise, corporate teams must see themselves as partners in patient care, even if they never touch a patient.
Steven Miller, MD, Clinical Solutions Architect, FDB
LinkedIn: Steven Miller
I am bullish on interoperability in 2026. In the past, advances in health interoperability were driven by adoption of messaging standards and clinical ontologies. We are now experiencing a sea change as AI begins to draw reams of unstructured health data into discrete formats that can be transferred across systems to facilitate creation of scalable decision support and outcomes evaluation. As clinical data becomes increasingly computable and transmittable, AI-enabled interoperability will power safer, more coordinated care.
Steve Mongelli, President, mPulse
LinkedIn: Steve Mongelli
The Year Payers Slam the Brakes on Point Solutions: 2026 is the year payers put an end to point solutions. For too long, health plans have managed huge networks of vendors, creating operational waste. True technological differentiation now comes from unifying claims, benefits, care management, enrollment, and digital engagement into a single, coherent member journey. With financial pressures of ROI, paired with scrutiny on regulatory compliance, disparate solutions are no longer sustainable or viable.
I’m seeing a clear shift toward consolidation next year, and it’s going to move faster than expected. Payers are looking for partners who can do more under one roof, communication, engagement, data integration, and compliance, because it’s cheaper and simpler. The platforms that can unify everything with one solution will win. And honestly, I think this consolidation wave is going to reshape the whole procurement process. Payers want fewer partners, more value, and an improved consumer experience.
Danielle Morrison, Nat’l Mgr, Healthcare, All Covered
LinkedIn: Danielle Morrison
Generative AI boomed into healthcare a few years ago and is not stopping. Its rapid acceleration will continue through 2026 and beyond. Though there is room for improvement between federal AI guidelines in healthcare and existing healthcare regulations, AI will continue to be a key area to alleviate some of the challenges faced by healthcare organizations while also being a topic of concern for those resistant to its adoption or seeking greater clarity for safe, secure, and compliant usage. Healthcare remains under siege from cyber attacks. Measures for strengthening security tools/platforms/solutions, governance policies and end user training will continue to be a top of mind IT issue. Federal funding changes and uncertainties will continue to impact healthcare organizations of all sizes through 2026.
Jake Morrison, Global Healthcare Practice Head – Partner, Infinite Computer Solutions
LinkedIn: Jake W Morrison
2026 Will Be the Year of Cloud Migration for EHRs
In 2026, more healthcare providers, from rural clinics to large teaching hospitals, will finally make the move to cloud-based Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems. The promise of real-time data access, enterprise-grade security, and flexible cost structures is proving too compelling to ignore. On-premise systems, once prized for control and compliance, now lag in interoperability, scalability, and total cost of ownership. As capital expenses for hardware, electricity, and system refreshes grow prohibitive, the cloud’s operational-spend model is winning over even the most cautious organizations.
But successful cloud migration demands far more than flipping a switch. Providers will need a comprehensive strategy with C-suite alignment, vendor coordination, and cultural buy-in across teams. The move isn’t a lift-and-shift, it’s a full re-engineering of systems and processes that reshapes workflows and security models alike. Those who plan thoroughly and manage the transition as both a technical and cultural transformation will see the greatest rewards: lower costs, greater agility, and the ability to scale with innovations like AI and telehealth. For healthcare organizations that get it right, 2026 could mark a turning point in how, and how fast, care is delivered.
Bilal Muhsin, EVP and President of Connected Care for Becton, Dickinson & Co.
LinkedIn: Bilal Muhsin
Medical devices were once highly utilitarian, designed specifically to perform a single function and do it well. As technology has progressed, we’re seeing smaller, more user-friendly tools with broader applications across diverse care settings. What excites me most is their growing connectivity to larger networked systems, enabling them to log data in real time and leverage advanced algorithms and AI models. This makes the devices significantly smarter, whether by predicting patient deterioration or automating workflows to improve patient safety.
Our vision for 2026 is to move beyond simple connectivity, where data travels from point A to point B, towards connection that drives actionable insights. With our new cloud-based platform powered by AI, we can transform data generated by our devices into meaningful insights that help clinicians make smarter, faster decisions.
This will help hospitals and health systems instantly answer questions about medication management, inventory levels, or create custom dashboards to monitor KPIs, all through natural language. No more spending days or weeks collecting data from outdated reports. AI-powered interoperability will make it possible in minutes. Generative AI, once experimental, is now delivering true applications, which is saving time and developing insights from massive datasets, and empowering clinicians to make informed decisions faster. Ultimately, improving patient care and outcomes.
Anthony Murray, Chief Interoperability Officer and ISSO, MRO
LinkedIn: Anthony Murray
The past year has delivered real movement regarding interoperability, especially on the regulatory front. Between TEFCA milestones, information blocking enforcement, expanded API requirements, and CMS unveiling its Interoperability Framework at its July Digital Health Ecosystem DC event, the momentum is finally shifting from intention to action. In 2026, that groundwork will start paying off. I predict the industry will feel the impact of these policies not as abstract rules but as tangible changes in how clinical data is curated, accessed, and exchanged.
Successful healthcare stakeholders will accelerate adoption of standards like FHIR, streamline quality reporting through automation, and pull more diverse clinical data sources directly into their EHRs.
Optimally, early adoption of CMS’s new Interoperability Framework will become a competitive edge rather than a regulatory chore.
Shaji Nair, Founder/CEO, FriskaAi
LinkedIn: Shaji Nair
Clinical AI becomes a trusted assistant in endocrinology and metabolic care
Clinical AI will evolve from a supportive tool to an embedded partner in metabolic and endocrine care, where continuous, measurable data that make AI-generated decision support more reliable and clinically valuable. Clearer FDA and global regulatory guidelines will allow approved AI-powered tools to update more easily, enhancing safety and opening the door for broader, everyday clinical use. As adoption accelerates, leading health systems will use AI for risk stratification, enabling earlier identification of high-risk patients and generating personalized care plans informed by CGM, lifestyle, and EMR data. Chronic and metabolic clinics will the way, as these specialties already have in place measurable outcomes and payer-backed programs linked to improved metabolic markers, creating a strong incentive for rapid AI integration.
Lisa Nelson, MS, MBA, Fractional Chief Technical Officer, DirectTrust
LinkedIn: Lisa Nelson
In 2026, the combined influence of the CMS Pledge and rising industry expectations will push organizations to prioritize interoperability solutions that truly work the way they should, reliable, intuitive, and aligned with real-world user needs. As a result, we’ll see a significant expansion in targeted, value-adding use cases that take advantage of Direct Secure Messaging, enabled by richer use case metadata published in the DirectTrust Aggregated Directory. This will make it markedly easier for organizations to discover the right endpoints for the specific workflows they want to utilize. At the same time, Direct will increasingly serve as a practical bridge to FHIR: more organizations will use Direct to transport payloads expressed in standard FHIR representations, accelerating their transition toward FHIR-based exchange while preserving the simplicity, resilience, and ubiquity of Direct.
Nancy Pratt, Senior Vice President, Product Management, CliniComp
LinkedIn: Nancy Pratt
The success of interoperability will be judged not by how many interfaces can peacefully co-exist, but by whether accurate data actually arrives in clinicians’ workflows. Progress in this area is going to come from practical governance, enforcement of industrywide standards, and vendors working to build common pathways for data exchange. When that happens, we’ll see care coordination finally scale across all types and sizes of organizations.
Ofer Regev, CTO and Co-Founder, Faddom
LinkedIn: Ofer Regev
By 2026, the biggest barrier to achieving true healthcare interoperability will not be data standards, but rather a lack of complete visibility into the infrastructure that facilitates data movement. Hospitals struggle to exchange information reliably when critical systems depend on hidden dependencies, legacy servers, or shadow IT that remains unknown and unmanaged. As healthcare evolves in hybrid environments, continuous real-time application dependency mapping will be essential. Safe and scalable interoperability cannot be accomplished without a clear understanding of how clinical systems are interconnected.
Kevin Ritter, Executive Vice President for CareInMotion, Altera Digital Health
LinkedIn: Kevin Ritter
For more than a decade, healthcare organizations have chased interoperability. We connected systems. We aggregated data. We exchanged patient records. And yet the operational reality remains unchanged: healthcare doesn’t have a data access problem; it has a data usability and data quality problem. The era of tolerating fragmented, inconsistent and unusable data is over. In 2026, leading organizations will recognize that data quality isn’t a compliance checkbox; it’s the foundation upon which every strategic decision rests. We’re now entering an era of intelligent data management, where real-time validation, data quality scoring and robust governance become paramount, addressing incomplete records and systemic biases that have long plagued our datasets. When data is centralized, consistent and trustworthy, everything changes: Patient outcomes improve. Costs go down. Most importantly, the AI initiatives we’re investing in become genuinely trustworthy.
Joe Scheidler, Co-Founder & CEO, Helios
LinkedIn: Joe S.
The ‘digital front door’ of government will be rebuilt with human-centered AI. Instead of navigating complex websites, citizens will use conversational AI to find information, fill out forms, and access benefits like health care or social security. The success of these initiatives will depend entirely on whether they are designed to be equitable, accessible, and truly simplify the citizen experience.
Scott R. Schell, MD, PhD, MBA, Chief Medical Officer, Cognizant
LinkedIn: Scott Schell
Healthcare and life sciences are converging through shared data ecosystems. The same interoperability standards that move imaging across hospital networks now allow molecular and clinical data to flow across research pipelines. Forbes noted that while startups have captured early enthusiasm, durable impact depends on how experimentation meets infrastructure. Health systems bring governance, compliance, and scale; startups bring velocity. The next leap will occur where these strengths intersect to unite data, workflow, and governance. Trusted exchange allows discoveries to inform care faster, while clinical outcomes refine research priorities in real time. Pull Quote: Progress will come from connection, not competition. The best systems will learn together.
Julie Scherer, Chief Solutions Officer, Motive Medical Intelligence
LinkedIn: Julie Scherer
In 2026, interoperability will finally be recognized not merely as a technology milestone, but as both a clinical and strategic imperative , the foundation of a continuous learning health system. True connected care extends beyond the exchange of data; it depends on transforming interoperable insights into actions that elevate physician performance and improve care for every member.
Patrick Sheehan, Vice President of Value-Based Care, Withings Health Solutions
LinkedIn: Patrick Sheehan
There’s a lot of conversation about a vision for interoperability across our healthcare systems, and what is playing out now are the practical steps: vendor-EMR integration is now the expectation. Clinical data needs to show up in the right place, at the right time, to the right clinician and when the patient is referred somewhere else, the data needs to follow them. We are seeing our partners invest early to build the foundation for a centralized source-of-truth that enables actionability across clinicians. We are seeing specific questions that show the level of concern organizations are bringing to this topic. The organizations that treat integration as a strategic investment, and not just a technical cost, will be the ones best positioned to deliver scalable, connected care.
Jonathan Shoemaker, CEO, ABOUT Healthcare
LinkedIn: Jonathan Shoemaker
In 2026, interoperability will depend less on new standards and more on how well leaders use the ones already on the table. Health systems will need to untangle complex regulatory frameworks and lean harder on proven capabilities like FHIR to support real-time data exchange. The organizations that move the fastest will be the ones that stop treating interoperability as an abstract IT goal and start using it as a practical tool for coordinated, connected care.
Jim Szyperski, CEO, Acuity Behavioral Health
LinkedIn: Jim Szyperski
Effective use of AI/data-driven use in behavioral healthcare clinical settings requires standardized measurements being used industry wide, and that is currently far from the case in behavioral healthcare. Everyone operates their clinical environments differently, and clinical care from site to site is subjective, qualitative, resulting in little to no data that can be used for industry analysis, development of best practices, etc. In this sense, AI has become a buzzword for innovation, perhaps posturing, in behavioral healthcare, and may have the impact of increasing variability rather than creating standards.
Jordan Taradash, CEO, PeopleOne Health
LinkedIn: Jordan Taradash
The era of “sick care” will give way to true wellbeing. Primary care will evolve into a central hub for prevention, mental health, acute care needs, and chronic condition management. It will integrate data from wearables and digital tools to help people not just get well, but stay well and flourish, bringing the healthcare system closer to its long-held aspirational goal of helping people truly thrive.
Greg Tietjen, CEO, Revalia Bio
LinkedIn: Greg Tietjen
Continuous human data integration: Trials will evolve into “living systems,” where human tissue and organoid data continuously inform dose, endpoint, and responder refinement.
Closed-loop learning: Continuous feedback between human only pre-clinical datasets and trial data will create self-improving model systems that evolve in real time across programs.
Cross-industry data harmonization: By unifying organoid, patient, and clinical data formats, Revalia will enable multi-institutional models to speak the same biological “language.”
Saeed Valian, Chief Information Security Officer, symplr
LinkedIn: Saeed Valian
As with most (if not all) companies, healthcare organizations are increasingly vulnerable due to the proliferation of shadow IT, unmanaged data, and unknown assets, which create blind spots in security posture. The rapid adoption of generative AI has empowered cybercriminals to orchestrate sophisticated attacks, as evidenced by the first confirmed AI-driven cyber-espionage in September 2025. With 80% of IT executives expressing concern over shadow IT, and many providers facing resource and budget constraints, the risk landscape is evolving quickly. These factors make it easier for attackers to exploit unmonitored systems and data, amplifying the impact of breaches and operational disruptions.
Looking ahead to 2026, organizations should expect emerging threats such as autonomous AI-driven intrusions, advanced social engineering (including deepfakes and voice cloning), and prompt injection attacks targeting healthcare workflows. To mitigate these risks, it is critical to prioritize the discovery and management of shadow IT, implement robust data security posture management (DSPM), and enforce strict controls around AI and LLM usage. Investing in continuous asset discovery, data classification, and identity resilience—even within budget constraints—will help healthcare providers better defend against evolving cyber threats and safeguard sensitive patient information.
Jon Walsh, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Unlearn
LinkedIn: Jonathan Walsh
While the industry has focused on connecting systems to share existing data, the next breakthrough lies in connecting intelligence, seamlessly integrating AI-generated predictions into clinical development workflows. Models trained on extensive patient-level clinical data can generate digital twins that inform study design, simulation, and evidence generation. The future isn’t just about moving data between systems; it’s about creating a unified, interoperable ecosystem that produces new, high-value data to drive smarter, faster, and more transparent trials.