As 2026 begins, I’m seeing a clear shift in how care is delivered and how patients expect to participate in it. After years of incremental progress, the industry is finally moving in ways that truly empower patients, lower barriers for innovators, and relieve clinicians from administrative overload. The forces driving this change are unmistakable: AI agents, consumer-first care models, new entrepreneurial pathways, and the decentralization of traditional medical systems. Taken together,
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Health IT | News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
The New “Pass/Fail” Test: Why Sovereignty, Not Features, Will Decide Global Health IT Contracts in 2026
What You Should Know:
- A new 2026 report from Black Book Market Research reveals a decisive shift in global healthcare procurement: digital sovereignty has replaced functionality as the primary "gatekeeper" for international contracts.
- Roughly 80% of international health buyers now treat data residency and jurisdictional control as pass/fail criteria, often disqualifying vendors before a product demo even occurs. This shift is being accelerated by AI, as ministries demand to
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Beyond Reactivity: Integrating AI-Driven Home Safety for Aging in Place
Aging in America isn’t a niche issue—it’s a seismic shift. Within five years, one in five Americans will be 65 or older. By 2034, older adults will outnumber children for the first time in U.S. history.1 This demographic flip is already reshaping households, businesses, and public policy.
One of the most urgent—and solvable—challenges is housing safety, particularly falls. Nearly 90% of older adults want to remain in their homes as they age.2 Yet, fewer than 10% of U.S. homes are
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Beyond Automation: Why the Future of Surgery Is “Performance-Guided,” Not Autonomous
Lately, I've been reading headlines about full autonomous surgery - claims that gallbladders can be removed without a human hand. It makes me wonder: is the operating room being handed over to machines?
The reality is complex - and more human than you might think.
While automation continues to advance, the true future of surgery lies not in removing the surgeon from the loop, but in equipping them with better tools to navigate it. That’s the principle behind Performance-Guided Surgery™: an
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Ending ‘Pajama Time’: How AI Redeploys Clinicians From Paperwork Back to Patients
Too many of us know the drill. After weeks or months of waiting, you finally land a doctor’s appointment. You sit in the exam room, anxious. When the doctor walks in, you get more eye contact with the laptop than with them. The visit feels rushed, and you leave with more questions than answers.
That scene isn’t about indifference. It’s about time. Clinicians are buried under paperwork. Nearly
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NYC Health + Hospitals to Acquire Maimonides in $2.2B Safety Net Overhaul
What You Should Know:
- New York City’s public health system, NYC Health + Hospitals (NYC H+H), has officially announced its plan to acquire Maimonides Health, a move fueled by a $2.2B state grant designed to stabilize Brooklyn's crumbling safety net.
- This merger will allow Maimonides to exit financial instability by accessing higher Medicaid reimbursement rates reserved for public entities and migrating to a unified Epic electronic health record (EHR) to fix fragmented care
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Physician Assistant Trends 2026: AI Adoption, Title Changes, and Workforce Growth
What You Should Know:
- A new Wolters Kluwer survey of practicing Physician Assistants (PAs) reveals a profession in rapid transition. While the workforce is projected to grow by 28% through 2034, PAs are grappling with a significant skills gap: 56% now use AI daily, yet 87% report needing more formal training.
- As the debate over the "Physician Associate" title heats up and administrative burdens mount, hospital leaders face a critical window to modernize training and support this
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AI “Multiplexing” Detects Alzheimer’s Pathology Years Before Symptoms in 3-Minute Test
What You Should Know:
- Two newly published peer-reviewed studies validate that Linus Health’s AI-driven, 3-minute digital assessment can concurrently detect cognitive impairment and predict underlying Alzheimer’s pathology.
- This "multiplexing" capability allows primary care providers to identify at-risk patients years before symptoms appear, potentially streamlining specialist referrals and improving eligibility for new disease-modifying treatments.
Linus Health Study
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Clinical Communication Maturity: The Missing Foundation of Digital Health ROI in Asia Pacific and the Middle East
Across Asia Pacific and the Middle East, hospital digital strategy has been dominated by EMR upgrades, infrastructure refresh cycles, and pilot projects in AI and analytics. Investment capital is chasing complexity. Yet the fastest, cheapest, and most direct ROI opportunity is hiding in plain sight—and systematically ignored. Clinical communication maturity.
This is not just another technology category. It is the operational substrate on which every other digital investment depends. Without
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Beyond Compliance: Why “Check-the-Box” Security Fails in Healthcare
Healthcare has become a uniquely complex and high-risk digital environment. Most organizations deal with a patchwork of legacy systems, cloud migrations, and evolving third-party ecosystems, all of which make maintaining security feel like trying to patch holes in a leaky ship while mandated to sail full speed ahead.
With this backdrop, it’s no wonder many organizations and teams fall back on “check-the-box” compliance to manage risk.
It should go without
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