Tuesday, September 1, 2026

< + > Anita Ghose Shares Real-World Tactics for Women in Health IT Leadership

Retaining female talent in healthcare IT requires more than basic networking events. It demands practical skills, global perspectives, and direct access to leaders who have survived large-scale transformations.

At HIC2026 in Sydney, Australia, I sat down with Anita Ghose, CEO at InventiveX and Program Lead and Facilitator – 2027 Women in Digital Health Leadership at Australasian Institute of Digital Health (AIDH), to discuss her work. We explored how this specialized program prepares women for the realities of digital health leadership and tackled the broader AI challenges facing the Australian healthcare market.

Core Insight: Practical Experience Over Theory. Effective leadership programs must bypass theoretical concepts and deliver actionable, real-world lessons from executives who have navigated actual digital health deployments.

Confronting the Data Head-On

The motivation behind building a dedicated leadership pipeline is grounded in stark workforce realities. Health systems cannot afford to lose experienced professionals mid-career. Ghose pointed directly to the numbers driving this initiative. “30% of women are represented in the tech workforce in Australia, and we know that by the age of 35, about 50% of them have actually left,” Ghose noted. “Now, there is a clear diversity issue here, but in addition to that, this is actually about the future of health. This is actually about the digital economy. This is actually about economic prosperity, productivity, workforces of the future.”

The Value of Real-World Evidence

Professional development often falls into the trap of being purely aspirational. Ghose noted how this specific program avoids that pitfall by focusing on immediate, practical application. “What they [other women in health IT programs] don’t have is the rich experiences of someone who’s tried and tested, that’s actually done the hard yards, where it has or hasn’t worked,” Ghose explained. In light of that, the program that she and AIDH have put together has emphasized real-world experience of women who have been through the gauntlet and emerged successful on the other side.

Focusing AI on Clinical Relief

Beyond leadership development, the Australian market is shifting its focus toward pragmatic technology applications. The priority is finding ways to reduce the cognitive load on frontline clinicians facing high-pressure environments. “Our workforces are under pressure in terms of our frontline clinicians. There’s cognitive load. There’s decision making that happens very fast in fast-paced environments with complexity,” Ghose observed. “How do we actually support our workforces through AI with tools and techniques and productivity opportunities that can actually make their lives easier?”

Questions Healthcare IT Leaders are Asking

Why is a global perspective necessary for local digital health leadership?
Understanding the global landscape helps leaders anticipate demand and supply trends within digital health. Incorporating international expertise allows local cohorts to learn from large-scale transformations and apply those insights directly to their day-to-day operations.

Where should health IT vendors focus their AI efforts in the Australian market?
Vendors should target solutions that address clinical workforce pressure and cognitive load. AI tools must deliver immediate productivity gains for frontline staff while providing intelligence that aids clinical decision-making and mitigates risk.

Learn more about InventiveX at https://www.linkedin.com/company/inventivexai/about/

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< + > Aligned Marketplace Raises $20 Million, Achieves Measurable Outcomes with Large Employers

A Third-Party Validated 12 Percent Reduction in Total Cost of Care Delivered in Year One for a Large Fortune 500 Company Proves the Independent Primary Care Model Works at Scale

Aligned Marketplace, the marketplace connecting self-insured employers to independent advanced and direct primary care, today announced an additional $20 million of investment with the Series A led by Venrock. The company has experienced tremendous growth and cost savings for its employer customers over the past 18 months, having achieved measurable outcomes with large Fortune 500 employers. The recent funding will help bring advanced primary care to more employers and Third Party Administrators (TPAs), improving member access and affordability while reducing employer spending. At the same time, the company is expanding its marketplace to include value-based specialty care.

Advanced primary care aligns everyone’s interests. Members get high-quality care at little or no cost, doctors stay independent as they grow, and employers improve member health while reducing downstream spend.

In a program launched on January 1, 2025, engaged members at a Fortune 500 company with a national footprint cost 12 percent less than a risk-matched national benchmark built by a third-party actuarial firm, a savings of $96 per member per month. Members at the same company who did not engage with an Aligned doctor came in at benchmark. 70 percent of engaged members were identified as high risk, and those members moved their care toward their Aligned doctor, averaging 4.7 visits with that doctor and 1.6 fewer visits elsewhere. More time with a primary care doctor showed up in preventative care, with engaged members roughly doubling their mammogram rate and nearly tripling their colonoscopy rate after their first visit. Members noticed the difference: 94 percent said they could get care when they needed it, and rated the experience a 9.2 out of 10.

“Employers continue to struggle with rising healthcare costs and poor access to primary care. Fortunately, better primary care lowers healthcare costs by making people healthier. Aligned Marketplace has built a national network of exceptional primary care providers who are super accessible to patients and deliver on the promise of making people healthier, which also lowers costs for employers and patients,” said Bob Kocher, Partner at Venrock.

More than 80 percent of physicians now work for hospital systems or large corporate entities that profit when care is delivered inside their facilities. Primary care, the first line of defense against hospital costs, has been absorbed into the same machine. Aligned is the alternative: a marketplace of independent advanced and direct primary care and specialty care providers, curated practice by practice, and fees tied to engagement and outcomes. With more than 3,000 in-person clinics across all 50 states, Aligned sits atop employers’ existing carrier or Third-Party Administrator, so there is no platform switch and no disruption to existing benefits.

“Our mission is to increase America’s healthy years. Unfortunately, the healthcare system was built to treat illness and generate volume, not to keep people healthy, control costs for the employer who pays the bills, or let independent doctors practice the way they want. We’ve proven that a different model works — one where keeping people healthy actually saves money,” said Patrick Nelli, Founder and CEO at Aligned Marketplace.

About Aligned Marketplace

Aligned is an advanced primary care marketplace that helps self-insured employers reduce healthcare costs. Aligned curates independent advanced primary care doctors who operate outside the traditional, volume-driven hospital system and outside traditional insurance networks, so until now, employers could not reach them at scale. When members need more than primary care, their doctor refers them to high-value downstream care, including specialists on Aligned Marketplace. Aligned connects members to the right care and measures performance against meaningful outcomes. Through a single contract that scales across all 50 states, employers gain access to the full marketplace, with Aligned’s fees tied to measurable performance. To learn more, visit alignedmarketplace.com.

Originally announced August 13th, 2026



Monday, August 31, 2026

< + > What’s Holding Healthcare AI Back? – Healthcare IT Today Podcast Episode 200

For the 200th episode of the Healthcare IT Today Podcast, I am joined by a very special guest host— Sagnik Bhattacharya, CEO at Rhapsody, the sponsor of this episode— to discuss what is holding AI back in healthcare! We kick this episode off by sharing what has surprised us most about AI adoption from the years of AI experimentation. Then we discuss where healthcare really is today. Next, we dig into why so many AI initiatives are succeeding in pilots but are struggling to scale. We then debate whether or not the industry is focusing too much on models and not enough on infrastructure, data, and operational readiness. Lastly, we wrap this episode up as we discuss what healthcare organizations need to do now to prepare for the next phase of AI innovation and more autonomous and agentic workflows.

Thank you to this episode’s sponsor, Rhapsody. Interoperability is hard to say, and even harder to do. Rhapsody makes it easy. Built exclusively for healthcare, Rhapsody helps organizations connect systems, activate trusted data, and reduce the burden of integration so teams can move faster with confidence. Trusted by more than 1,900 healthcare organizations worldwide and ranked #1 in Best in KLAS for integration for 17 years running, Rhapsody is helping healthcare organizations build an AI-ready foundation for what’s next. See where you stand. Get the Rhapsody State of Interoperability report at interopreport.com.

Here’s a preview of the topics and questions we discuss in this episode:

  • After several years of AI experimentation, what has surprised you most about AI adoption, and where is healthcare really today?
  • Why are so many AI initiatives succeeding in pilots but struggling to scale?
  • Is the industry focusing too much on models and not enough on infrastructure, data, and operational readiness?
  • What do healthcare organizations need to do now to prepare for the next phase of AI innovation and more autonomous and agentic workflows?

Now, without further ado, we’re excited to share with you the next episode of the Healthcare IT Today podcast.

We publish a new Healthcare IT Today podcast every ~2 weeks. Thanks to our friends at Healthcare Now Radio, you’ll be able to listen to the latest episodes of Healthcare IT Today on their radio station for the first two weeks. Then, we’ll be publishing each episode as a podcast and YouTube video here after it finishes on the radio.

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If you work in Healthcare IT, we’d love to hear where you agree and/or disagree with the perspectives we shared. Feel free to share your thoughts and perspectives in the comments of this post, in the YouTube comments, with @Colin_Hung or @techguy on Twitter, or privately on our Contact Us page. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if you have any ideas for future episodes.

Thanks so much for listening!

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< + > R1 to Acquire Humata Health, Enhancing Phare OS with AI-Powered Prior Authorization Automation and Payer-Provider Collaboration

Acquisition Removes Friction from Complex Prior Authorizations to Benefit Patients, Clinicians, Providers, and Payers

R1, an industry leader in healthcare revenue management, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Humata Health (Humata), a leader in AI-powered, touchless prior authorizations. The transaction marks a significant step in advancing R1’s strategy to comprehensively automate the revenue cycle through its Phare Operating System (Phare OS), expanding the platform’s AI-powered capabilities while helping providers reduce administrative complexity, increase reimbursement accuracy, and improve financial outcomes.

Prior authorizations are a top-three driver of denials and a frequent source of frustration for health systems, clinicians, and patients. A recent KFF survey found that one-third of insured adults identified prior authorization as the biggest burden faced when accessing healthcare, particularly for individuals with chronic health conditions. Staying up to date on frequently changing prior authorization policies is challenging, and securing authorizations typically requires significant manual effort for healthcare providers and payers.

R1’s Phare OS is a comprehensive automation platform that prioritizes pre-bill workflows for authorization, utilization review, documentation, and coding. It utilizes an AI-first architecture to prevent downstream denials and optimize reimbursement before claims are submitted. Humata’s authorization policy monitoring and agentic capabilities for autonomously creating effective authorization submissions will directly enhance Phare Intelligence and Payer Atlas, the foundation of Phare OS. Phare OS customers will also benefit from the ability to deploy additional modules, including Audit and Denials, with minimal incremental data integration. In addition, this strengthens the ability for Phare OS to support deeper collaboration between payers and providers, moving the industry closer to real-time authorizations.

Humata Health is a leading health tech company dedicated to making prior authorization seamless for health systems, payers, and the patients they serve. With agentic workflows that intelligently match policies and connect to payers in real-time, its proprietary, end-to-end solution simplifies and accelerates every step of the medical review process. It determines requirement logic, creates AI-driven clinical bundles, provides evidence for payer attestations, and manages requests through final approval across all specialties. Humata’s solution allows providers to achieve up to a 96% first-pass approval rate while reducing write-offs by 30%, rescheduled appointments by 83%, and staff touches by 45%, delivering lower costs and friction for payers and providers, while ensuring patients gain faster access to care.

Following the closing of the transaction, expected to occur by the end of the third quarter, the Humata team will enhance R1’s R37 innovation lab, R1’s agentic AI development team. R1 plans to connect Humata’s technology to Phare OS, accelerating AI-powered automation across the revenue cycle and supporting Humata’s ability to scale and serve its growing pipeline.

“Today’s announcement marks an important step forward in our journey to automate the revenue cycle and make real-time authorizations a near-term reality,” said Joe Flanagan, Chief Executive Officer at R1. “Humata significantly enhances our coverage of the authorization process, advancing our strategy to have the most intelligent and integrated pre-bill architecture in the industry. Together, we will continue to shape the future of revenue cycle management and help deliver better outcomes for the patients, providers, and health systems we serve.”

“As a physician, I’ve seen firsthand how prior authorization delays drain providers and push an already strained healthcare system to a breaking point,” said Jeremy Friese, MD, Founder and CEO at Humata Health. “Fixing this broken process is urgent. By joining forces with R1 and its visionary R37 innovation lab, we can bring our prior authorization capabilities into the Phare OS platform, combining advanced AI and upstream intelligence with downstream execution to finally eliminate administrative friction for providers, payers, and patients.”

About R1

R1 is a leader in healthcare revenue management, helping providers achieve new levels of performance through smart orchestration. A pioneer in the industry, R1 created the first Healthcare Revenue Operating System: a modular, intelligent platform that integrates automation, AI, and human expertise to strengthen the entire revenue cycle. With more than 20 years of experience, R1 partners with 1,000 providers, including 95 of the top 100 U.S. health systems, and handles over 600 million payer transactions annually. This scale provides unmatched operational insight to help healthcare organizations unlock greater long-term value. To learn more, visit r1rcm.com.

About Humata Health

Humata Health is a leader in AI-powered, touchless prior authorizations. A health tech company “Built for Yes,” its mission is to make prior authorization easy and seamless for providers, payers, and the patients they serve. With the industry’s largest ecosystem of integrations and proprietary technology that gathers the right clinical information required for fast approval, the Humata platform is the only truly end-to-end prior authorization solution for all services and procedures. Humata is a physician-led company that is backed by a syndicate of strategic healthcare investors including Blue Venture Fund, Sandbox Clinical Venture Fund, LRVHealth, .406 Ventures, and Highmark Ventures. Lazard served as exclusive financial advisor to Humata for this transaction.

Originally announced August 18th, 2026



Sunday, August 30, 2026

< + > Bonus Features – August 30, 2026 – 1 in 5 Americans Have Left Without Filling a Prescription Due to High Costs, 88% of Workers Have Worked Through Illness, Plus 33 More Stories

Welcome to the weekly edition of Healthcare IT Today Bonus Features. I’m taking over for Brian this week while he is on vacation with his family! So don’t worry, he will be back for next week’s Bonus Features. This article will be a weekly roundup of interesting stories, product announcements, new hires, partnerships, research studies, awards, sales, and more. Because there’s so much happening out there in healthcare IT that we aren’t able to cover in our full articles, we still want to make sure you’re informed of all the latest news, announcements, and stories happening to help you better do your job.

News

  • The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announces the nine winners of the 2026 KidneyX EMPOWER: Living Link Prize Challenge! Grand Prize Winner –  Richard Horsley: LivingLink; Columbia University Irving Medical Center/New York-Presbyterian: DonorForward; Dartmouth Transplant: A Rural Living Donor Tele-Navigation Hub; Kidney Connective: Best-fit routing for donors and their pairs; MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute: Expanding Living Kidney Donation in Adults 65 and Older; National Kidney Donation Organization: The NKDO Living Link Network; NYU Langone Health Transplant Institute: CADENCE; Regenstrief Institute: LIVINGkidney; and Virginia Commonwealth University: The KHCP Living Link Pathway.

Stats

Partnerships

Products

Implementations

Company News

People

If you have news that you’d like us to consider for a future edition of Healthcare IT Today Bonus Features, please submit them on this page. Please include any relevant links and let us know if news is under embargo. Note that submissions received after the close of business on Thursday may not be included in Bonus Features until the following week.



Saturday, August 29, 2026

< + > Weekly Roundup – August 29, 2026

Welcome to our Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundup. Each week, we’ll be providing a look back at the articles we posted and why they’re important to the healthcare IT community. We hope this gives you a chance to catch up on anything you may have missed during the week.

Designing Prescription Infrastructure for the Transparency Era. Raj Ramaswamy, CTO at Buzz Health, details how real-time accuracy moving from a competitive edge to a baseline requirement has shifted the prescription pressure point to infrastructure. Read more…

Why Ambulatory Groups Need Standardized IT Infrastructure – and the Right MSP Partner. Unchecked technology sprawl has a huge effect on efficient care delivery— contributing to IT complexity, posing a security threat, etc. Steven Norris, Vice President of Technical Services at HCTec, describes the best way to avoid this by adopting a standardized IT infrastructure. Read more…

The Needs of Back Office Health IT Systems: What is Being Well Addressed by IT and What Still Needs Work. Our wonderful Healthcare IT Today community shares what back office health IT systems needs are being well addressed by IT, as well as what areas of back office health IT systems still need some work. Read more…

Elevating Cybersecurity: Effective Threat Intelligence for Large-Scale Healthcare IT. Large-scale healthcare organizations are currently handling a dangerous cocktail of mounting cyber threats, complex IT environments, limited staff, and alert fatigue. The solution? Adopting the best threat intelligence platform that reduces noise, automates analysis, and delivers actionable insights without adding to operational complexity. Read more…

Leading ACCESS Model Participants. The 10-year, voluntary CMS Advancing Chronic Care with Effective Scalable Solutions (ACCESS) Model went into effect on July 5th. There are more than 150 accepted applicants — here are some of the leading ones. Read more…

Life Sciences Today Podcast – Episode 76: Making Your Life Science Research Impossible to Overlook. Danny Lieberman sits down with Dr. Boris Gorelik, Founder and CEO at Loud Camel, to discuss his new startup and the ins and outs of life science research. Read more…

CIO PodcastEpisode 120: Healthcare Education and Training with Stephanie Lahr. John Lynn is joined by Stephanie Lahr, MD, CMO at uPerform, to discuss how healthcare education and training is often overlooked, despite being so vital. Read more…

Why AI Fails in Surgical Care, and How to Get It Right. “More than 80% of AI projects fail to reach production across industries, with similar findings in healthcare. For surgery specifically, the gap between promising algorithms and clinical impact remains large.” Dr. David Atashroo, Chief Medical Officer of Perioperative at Qventus, explains the failings of AI in surgical care and suggests what needs to be done to get it right. Read more…

The Global HIM Evolution: Why AI Requires Human Data Stewards According to HIMAA. Colin Hung makes another stop on his journey to understand the evolution of the HIM profession. He sat down with Kathleen Rogers, Member & Profession Services Manager, and Danika Bakalich, Director of Workforce Advocacy & Development from HIMAA to discuss what the Aussies are doing for their HIM professions. Read more…

Beyond IT Governance: Why Clinical Technology Requires Its Own Operating Model. Tanya M. Martin, MBA-HCM, Sr. Director, Clinical Technology Services at Tufts University, details how the expansion of clinical technology has created a structural gap in healthcare, meaning it now requires its own operating model. Read more…

This Week’s Health IT Jobs for August 26, 2026: Multiple operational roles, as well as community health and analyst roles. Read more…

Bonus Features for August 23, 2026: Epic announces real-time prior authorization checks; 38% of organizations face network or security disruptions weekly. Read more…

Funding and M&A Activity:

Thanks for reading and be sure to check out our latest Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundups.



Friday, August 28, 2026

< + > Making Your Life Science Research Impossible to Overlook – Life Sciences Today Podcast Episode 76

We’re excited to be back for another episode of the Life Sciences Today Podcast by Healthcare IT Today. My guest today is Dr. Boris Gorelik, Founder and CEO at Loud Camel. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Gorelik, who did his PhD in computational biology in the pharmacology department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Although he’s an expert in machine learning in life sciences, his new startup is something else.

Check out the main topics of discussion for this episode of the Life Sciences Today podcast:

  • Tell us about your latest startup, Loud Camel.
  • How do you create value?
  • How do you capture value? What is the business model, and who pays you?
  • What is the biggest anti-pattern in the industry?

Subscribe to Danny’s newsletter to get strategic patterns for life science leaders building a defensible business.

Be sure to subscribe to the Life Sciences Today Podcast on your favorite podcasting platform:

Along with the popular podcasting platforms above, you can Subscribe to Healthcare IT Today on YouTube.  Plus, all of the audio and video versions will be made available to stream on Healthcare IT Today. As a former pharma-tech founder who bootstrapped to exit, I now help TechBio and digital health CEOs grow revenue—by solving the tech, team, and go-to-market problems that stall your progress. If you want a warrior by your side, connect with me on LinkedIn.

If you work in Life Sciences IT, we’d love to hear where you agree and/or disagree with our takes on health IT innovation in life sciences. Feel free to share your thoughts and perspectives in the comments of this post, in the YouTube comments, or privately on our Contact Us page. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if you have any ideas for future episodes.

Thanks so much for listening!



< + > Anita Ghose Shares Real-World Tactics for Women in Health IT Leadership

Retaining female talent in healthcare IT requires more than basic networking events. It demands practical skills, global perspectives, and d...