The pharma industry is accustomed to operating in a highly regulated and risk-conscious environment. While companies continue to invest in scientific innovation, they have been slower to adopt technology.
Long cycle times and uncertainty around new platforms have made organizations hesitant to disrupt entrenched workflows. That hesitation has led to many leaders falling into a “watch and wait mentality,” missed opportunities to lower costs, shorten timelines and deliver new treatments
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Why Patient Access Is Healthcare’s Highest-Leverage Growth Lever
Patient access has long been managed as an operational necessity — scheduling, registration, referral intake — the plumbing that keeps the clinical enterprise running. Revenue cycle is measured on collections. Digital engagement is judged on portal logins. Each function optimizes for its own number.
Treated together, these three functions tell a more useful story: how easily a patient can get an appointment and navigate their next step in care determines whether that patient — and their
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Do Patients Need to Understand AI Before They Can Trust It?
AI is being rapidly integrated into healthcare, and its role is expanding quickly. Yet, despite this rapid adoption, AI trust among patients remains critically low. That is a problem because trust is fundamental to healthcare. Patients who trust their healthcare providers are more likely to share information, follow recommendations, and actively engage with their care. In my current professional role, I spend a considerable amount of time thinking about the reasons why patients should trust
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Why Healthcare Can’t Skip Steps on the Way to Conversational AI
Healthcare software is moving toward a future where clinicians can simply say what they need. Document this encounter. Show me the latest CBC. Pull up the relevant imaging. Start an order. Instead of navigating a maze of screens, clinicians can interact with clinical software and data through natural language.
There is good reason to want that future. Physicians spend an average of 13 hours each week on indirect patient care, including documentation, order entry, test results, and referrals.
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Consumer AI Is Healthcare’s New Front Door. Who’s Deciding What Happens There?
One in four U.S. adults, more than 66 million people, have now used AI tools or chatbots for health information or advice according to a West Health–Gallup survey released in April. Most aren't using it in place of care. They're using it around care: 59% of recent users researched their medical question with AI before seeing a doctor, and 56% did so afterward.
I see this in practice. A patient arrives with a cough, fever and body aches, and a chatbot has already suggested pneumonia. It might
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Why the AMA’s AI Liability Policy Shifts Risk to Health System Data Access Logs
The AMA says physician oversight can’t substitute for adequate evidence and system design. That puts the burden on whoever holds the usage records.
In many hospitals, an AI tool is reading patient records through a shared service account that no one can tie to a person. That gap matters more now. The American Medical Association's new framework, released October 29, 2026, divides responsibility among developers, physicians, and the health systems that deploy AI tools. Of the three parties,
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Advancing Clinical Trials Through Digital Health Technology
Decentralized and hybrid trials continue to grow in popularity, making it essential for contract research organizations (CROs) to seamlessly integrate remote wearable technologies into trial operations. Traditional, site-based trials often miss meaningful changes between participant visits, so remote wearable devices are appealing because they improve study quality through continuous, real-world data collection. One study showed that a 14-day adhesive ECG patch detected arrhythmias in 59.5% of
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The Discharge Signal: What Length-of-Stay Creep Is Really Telling You
When hospital length of stay begins to rise, attention often turns immediately to the emergency department. The ED is the front door, the pressure is visible, and its leaders are often the first to raise concerns about boarding, admission delays, and patients leaving without being seen.
Yet length-of-stay unplanned increases frequently begin farther downstream. Patients may have completed the clinical portion of their stay but remain in beds while teams coordinate post-acute placement,
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Why Regulatory Flexibility Demands Decision-Ready Clinical Evidence
Regulatory guidance plays a critical role in clinical trial development, but it cannot anticipate every question that may emerge during the development of a program. When guidance is absent, outdated or inconsistent across authorities, sponsors have legitimate room to exercise judgment. However, that flexibility should be approached as conditional rather than permissive. Flexibility in a program’s design does not change the level of scrutiny that regulators will apply to the evidence sponsors
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Mental Health Tech M&A Needs a Consent Continuity Standard
Mental health technology deals are increasingly sold on continuity. A larger platform can offer more providers, more forms of care, and fewer disruptions when a patient changes jobs, insurance, or treatment needs. That promise is compelling. It also creates a data governance problem that is easy to miss during integration.
When two platforms combine, the transaction may bring together therapy records, assessment responses, care navigation history, claims, wearable streams, voice data,
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