Clinical trials have grown more complex than ever before. Protocols are becoming more specialized, endpoints more refined, and eligibility criteria narrower and more precise. At the same time, development programs are expected to move faster and operate with greater efficiency. Despite this dual pressure, feasibility projections often rely on high-level estimates or investigator recall rather than validated assessments of patients who truly meet protocol criteria in a real-world clinical
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Alternative Funding Programs vs. In-Benefit Optimization: Designing a Sustainable Specialty Drug Strategy
Specialty medications are expanding what is clinically possible, but not without a price. The affordability gap on these therapies continues to widen, placing sustained pressure on health plan budgets. U.S. prescription drug spending reached approximately $467 billion in 2024, with projections exceeding $556 billion by the end of 2026. As costs rise, employers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) face increasing pressure to ensure that high-cost therapies remain both clinically appropriate and
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Don’t Let Legacy Data Derail Your Health System’s Growth
As health systems continue expanding through acquisitions and partnerships, many find themselves racing to bring new practices onto shared EHR platforms. The motivation is clear: unify care, streamline operations, and unlock value across the enterprise. But beneath that strategic vision lies a messy operational reality – one that too often gets overlooked until it’s too late.
At the center of this challenge is legacy data.
For every practice or partner brought into the fold, there's a
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4 Critical Guardrails for Community Hospital Tech Procurement
Healthcare is moving toward models that reward outcomes, continuity, and population health management, yet disparities in access to specialized care continue to persist. And while community hospitals are central to closing this gap, they are being inundated with technologies that promise to transform care yet are structurally difficult to translate from large academic medical centers to smaller ones.
Rural hospitals operate with lower patient volumes and thinner margins, practical
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Rural Hospitals Are Collapsing Under Administrative Burden That AI Alone Cannot Solve
More than 180 rural hospitals in the United States have closed since 2005, according to the Chartis Center for Rural Health, while providers spend over $25 billion annually on claims adjudication, with nearly $18 billion of that tied to claims that are ultimately paid, according to Premier Inc.
That’s not a demand problem. It’s an administrative one. And increasingly, it’s a technology infrastructure problem tied to how work is managed, measured, and automated.
And for rural hospitals
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Shifting the Interoperability Axis: Why Layered Extensions Fail Modern Hospital Core EHRs
Every year, there are roughly 33.5 million hospital admissions, 155 million emergency department visits, and hundreds of millions of outpatient encounters across the United States. At the same time, healthcare spending has reached $4.9 trillion annually. When patient data, especially for such a large number of healthcare consumers, is fragmented across multiple applications, vendors, and systems, the effect is exponential. It is multiplied across every encounter, every workflow, and every
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How the REAL Health Providers Act Will Eradicate “Ghost Networks”
The proposed Requiring Enhanced and Accurate Lists (REAL) Health Providers Act—also referred to as the RHP Act—recently signed and expected to take effect for plan year 2028, represents a significant shift in how healthcare providers are regulated, credentialed, and represented to Medicare Advantage members.
The proposed requirements aim to provide health plan members with greater transparency, accessibility, and accuracy within provider directories in their member portals. Payers will need
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If the Data Center Goes Down, Patient Care Goes with It
Healthcare organizations have spent years modernizing clinical technology. All of it depends on one thing: the data center staying online. Here’s what resilient healthcare infrastructure actually looks like.
Healthcare IT leaders have spent years modernizing their infrastructure: migrating to electronic health records, deploying telehealth platforms, integrating remote monitoring devices, connecting imaging systems to clinical workflows, and more. The investment has been substantial, and the
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Turning AI Into Real Support for Skilled Nursing Teams
Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant concept in skilled nursing. It shows up in daily workflows, from documentation support and predictive insights to workforce planning and quality management. The real question facing skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) is no longer whether AI will play a role, but how to implement it in a way that genuinely supports frontline teams and improves resident outcomes.
Recent conversations with operators, clinical leaders, and technology executives have
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When Rural Maternity Care Fails: Why Bipartisan Policy Must Stabilize Obstetric Infrastructure
More than one-third of U.S. counties are now considered maternity care deserts. In 2023, the national maternal mortality rate hit 18.6 deaths per 100,000 live births. For Black women, that climbs to 50.3 deaths per 100,000, more than double the national average.
What we're missing is policy alignment, sustainable funding, and important culture changes that align maternal care teams beyond the current boundaries of what high quality and reliable maternal care looks like. And we can’t
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