Digital channels continue to expand communication between health systems and patients, but the phone remains a critical point of contact across the entire patient journey. Patients frequently call their providers for everything from scheduling and appointment changes to insurance questions, prescription issues, and urgent concerns about their care.
Calls are especially important not only for prospective patients exploring services, but also for existing
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
6 Strategies to Help Meet HR1 Eligibility and Enrollment Requirements
HR1, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, significantly revised eligibility and enrollment processes for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. With deadlines starting December 31, 2026, agencies must begin modernization efforts now to prevent costly delays.
Health and human service agencies must take a thoughtful approach to these policy updates to help ensure compliance while continuing to deliver quality services. Six strategies include:
1.
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Healthcare AI Governance: Implementing NIST Trustworthy AI and OWASP Security Guardrails
In Part 1 of this series, we covered the foundation of an AI-ready healthcare organization: an organization-appropriate governance framework, regulatory awareness, and an AI inventory.
Now, let's discuss the other essential capabilities for AI readiness: risk management and guardrails.
Apply Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) to AI
AI risk must be managed like other enterprise risks:
Establish a risk framework Define your organization’s risk appetite and toleranceIdentify
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Why Healthcare Must Give Patients Control of Their Data
For the longest time, “personal finance” was anything but personal.
Consumers had very little insight into or control over important things like their savings and investing. Most of their financial decisions and information were in the hands of bankers or wealth managers.
But technology ushered in a power shift. Suddenly, people could do things like make trades, track their spending, and chart their financial future on their own terms. It was about more than just convenience. It was about
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The $26B Blind Spot: Why Hospitals Are Failing to Stop Pressure Injuries
Hospital leaders are navigating one of the most transformative periods in modern healthcare as organizations invest heavily in artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and digital infrastructure. Yet one of the deadliest and most expensive forms of preventable harm inside hospitals receives far less strategic attention than it deserves: hospital-acquired pressure injuries.
Pressure injuries contribute to an estimated 60,000 deaths annually in the United States, according to the Agency
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Compliance-First AI Engineering in Healthcare: Why Platforms Matter More Than Models
The healthcare industry spent an estimated $3.7 billion on artificial intelligence solutions in 2025, according to Statista. Executives cite clinical decision support, revenue cycle optimization, and administrative automation as their top priorities. Yet a striking pattern has emerged: roughly 75% of healthcare AI pilots never reach production, per Gartner's 2025 analysis of digital health deployments.
The conventional explanation blames model accuracy, data
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How to Scale a Private Medical or Dental Practice from One to 100 Locations
For many private practitioners, getting one brick-and-mortar medical or dental office up and running is hard enough. The thought of going from zero to one location — let alone scaling your practice from one to 100 — is hard to fathom. Yet the path from one to 100 isn’t as arduous as it might seem.
Well-run practices that have the personnel and ability to scale might not do so simply because they lack important knowledge — and leave millions of dollars on the table as a result. The
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From Governance to Enablement: How Healthcare CIOs Can Stop Killing AI Innovation
AI governance in healthcare has a branding problem. The word "governance" alone is enough to make half the room shut down. I've seen it happen. You put that word on a meeting invite, and suddenly everyone assumes this is the conversation where someone tells them what they can't do. That framing kills innovation before it starts.
I spent nearly a decade leading data and analytics teams at the largest healthcare system in Indiana, and we eventually stopped calling it governance altogether. We
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The Womenʼs Health Blackout: How Defunding Gender Research Puts Patients at Risk Across Every Life Stage
Women experience mental health disorders at significantly higher rates than men. In primary care settings, 43% of women have at least one mental disorder compared to 33% of men, with particularly elevated rates of mood and anxiety disorders. Despite this higher prevalence, only 7% of healthcare research focuses on conditions that exclusively affect women.
This research gap leaves clinicians without clear guidance when treating women's mental health across different life stages. How does
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Preparing Healthcare Data for AI: Why Health Systems Must Fix Legacy Systems
Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to transform healthcare operations and decision-making. Healthcare alone now captures nearly half of all vertical AI spend – approximately $1.5 billion in 2025, more than tripling from $450 million the year prior and exceeding the next four verticals combined. Yet many organizations discover that their AI initiatives stall before they deliver value. The problem often isn’t the AI models themselves, but rather the data behind them.
For
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