< + > ViVE and HIMSS Recap – Healthcare IT Today Podcast Episode 190

For the 190th episode of the Healthcare IT Today Podcast, I am joined by a very special guest host, Reese Maynard, MS, MBA, Owner of AskShereese.tech, to take a look back and review the ViVE and HIMSS conferences! We kick off this review by sharing our big takeaway from ViVE and HIMSS. Next, we dive into everyone’s favorite topic – AI. We share what we were able to learn about AI during these conferences. And on the flip side, we debate on what we think we need to stop talking about with AI. Then, we highlight some of the companies and announcements that stood out and made an impact on us. Lastly, we wrap this review of ViVE and HIMSS up by discussing what we were hoping to see at these conferences, but unfortunately didn’t happen.

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

• What are your big takeaways from the ViVE and HIMSS Conferences?
• What have we learned about AI, and what do we need to stop talking about with AI?
• What companies or announcements stood out to you around the conferences?
• What’s something you didn’t see at the conferences that you’d have liked to see?

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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< + > Brilliant Data Visions and Billion-Dollar Deja Vu at Digital Health Canada’s ON26

I recently attended the ON 26 conference hosted by Digital Health Canada

This event is a great event to plug into the Canadian digital health ecosystem, especially around interoperability, data sharing, and research. This year promised more of the same, and it absolutely delivered.

However, the real talk wasn’t on the main stage, it was a massive government announcement that dropped mid-event, with the potential to completely change the game for primary care doctors. From a brilliant federated data vision to real-time health data initiatives, here is the inside scoop on what went down.

A Federated Approach to Health Data Sharing

The opening session set a high bar. Matthew Anderson, CEO of Ontario Health, showed off their Provincial Data Utility. Instead of forcing all EHR data into a single physical repository, they are proposing a federated approach. The data stays where it is, but organizations can access it in a standardized way through an analytic hub.

I really like this vision. It sidesteps the massive headache of moving data and lets us focus purely on interoperability. Plus, this federated data can help train AI engines to optimize Ontario’s healthcare system much faster.

Single EMR Announcement Overshadowed ON26

But an hour later, big news dropped that became the talk of the conference. The Ontario Government announced an additional  $3.4 billion for their primary care action plan, which now includes funding for a proposed province-wide primary care medical record.

If this means “one system to rule them all,” I am profoundly disappointed. We tried a single EMR approach back in 2002, and after seven years and over a billion wasted taxpayer dollars, we had nothing to show for it.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that a single longitudinal health record is like the mythical jackalope: we’d all love to see one, but it’s just a figment of our imagination. Why? Because we are learning that there are so many contributors to health. The air quality in our homes, where we work, what foods we eat, income levels, dental health, etc. A decade ago, it would have been ridiculous to think about including dental records or SDOH data as part of someone’s health record. Today I would argue that a health record without either of these things is incomplete.

Expecting a single EHR to cater to all this data is not realistic. Can you imagine a dentist using the same system as a family doctor?

I’m crossing my fingers they look to Alberta’s Netcare model instead, which mandates a single repository but gives clinics the freedom to choose their own EMR.

Encouraging Initiatives from CIHI

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) provided some major bright spots. In my video recount below, I included two mini-interviews with the CIHI team:

• Real-time Hospital Data: I spoke with Tanya Khan, Manager of Hospital Data Advancement & Engagement and Tetyana Maniuk, EM Physician & Senior Clinical Advisor at CIHI about transitioning hospital data from latent, legacy systems to near real-time access by March 2028. The goal is to reduce wait times and optimize resources without adding a single click to frontline staff.
• International Interoperability: I also caught up with Shannon O’Connor, Manager of Data Standards at CIHI to discuss how they are collaborating with the U.S. and Australia to establish the Canadian core data for interoperability (CA-CDI). Alongside the upcoming Bill S5 to prohibit information blocking, this could be a game-changer for digital health in Canada.

Delivering on the Promise of Digital Health Canada

Overall, ON 26 delivered exactly what it promised. It was great to catch up with friends and see the exciting projects pushing Canadian healthcare forward.

What Health IT Leaders Are Asking

What is a federated approach to healthcare data sharing? A federated approach allows healthcare data to remain securely in its original source systems while making it accessible through a standardized analytic hub. Instead of taking on the massive, costly challenge of physically moving and consolidating data into a single repository, organizations simply connect to the hub to share and query information. This method accelerates interoperability, reduces friction, and creates high-quality datasets to help train AI engines much faster.

Why are single-system EMR mandates so controversial? Mandating a single electronic medical record (EMR) system across an entire province rarely works because primary care is incredibly diverse. A “one system to rule them all” approach struggles to meet the unique, day-to-day workflow needs of different specialties—from family docs to physical therapists and dentists. Historically, forcing a single-vendor approach has resulted in wasted taxpayer dollars and low adoption. The reality? A better solution is to let market forces determine the best software for the practice, while using government power to strictly mandate interoperability and data sharing.

How will Bill S5 and CA-CDI impact Canadian healthcare interoperability? Bill S5 (the Connected Care for Canadians Act) and the Canadian Core Data for Interoperability (CA-CDI) are designed to prohibit information blocking and require vendors to adhere to a common set of data standards. Once implemented, these initiatives will ensure that a patient’s health information can travel seamlessly across provincial borders and different sectors of care. This standardized approach lowers the heavy lifting for vendors and ultimately empowers patients with better access to their own health records

Learn more about Digital Health Canada at https://digitalhealthcanada.com/

< + > Dimer Health Raises $13.5 Million | Thesis Care Announces $45 Million Series A

Check out today’s featured companies who have recently raised a round of funding, and be sure to check out the full list of past healthcare IT fundings.

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Dimer Health Raises $13.5 Million To Rebuild Post-Discharge Care With Clinician-Led AI

Round Led by Team8 and Bill Ackman’s Table Management, with Participation from Silver Circle and TechAviv

Dimer Health, a clinician-led, AI-native Transitional Care Medicine company, today announced $13.5 million in Series A financing led by Team8 and Bill Ackman’s Table Management, with participation from existing investors Silver Circle and TechAviv. The round brings total funding to nearly $20 million and will support national expansion of Dimer’s dedicated post-discharge clinical service line, now operating across eight states.

Hospital care has modernized. The 30 days after discharge have not.

Nearly half of hospital readmissions occur within the first 14 days after discharge, the most clinically vulnerable period of recovery. Yet patients often wait weeks for follow-up care, leaving a critical gap in oversight during the time they are most at risk. These breakdowns in care transitions contribute to an estimated $52-62 billion in annual readmission costs across the U.S. healthcare system.

Dimer Health was founded to close this gap by building a new clinical model purpose-built for the post-discharge window.

The company combines an AI-powered front door with a physician-led Transitional Care practice designed exclusively for recovery at home. Its proprietary clinical AI system, AiME, developed by clinicians and grounded in physician-validated protocols, engages patients in real time, interpreting symptoms within the context of each individual’s medical history, medications, and comorbidities. AiME continuously detects emerging risk signals and seamlessly escalates patients to a dedicated Transitionist when medical intervention is needed.

Each Transitionist, a licensed clinician, owns the episode of care from discharge through recovery, delivering structured, accountable oversight that extends far beyond traditional telehealth…

Full release here, originally announced March 23rd, 2026.

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Thesis Care Announces $45 Million Series A to Scale AI-Powered Clinical Teams Across Healthcare

The Thesis Platform Combines AI Agents with Expert Clinicians to Deliver Scalable Capacity for Healthcare’s Most Complex Workflows

Thesis Care (formerly Trovo Health), the AI-powered care team platform for scalable clinical capacity, announced $45 million in Series A funding led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from CRV, and additional support from Black Opal Ventures and experienced C-level healthcare technology angel investors. This brings the total funding for Thesis to $60 million.

With this announcement, the company is also unveiling its new name, Thesis Care, to reflect the evolution of its platform. Thesis deploys AI agents backed by expert clinicians to take on high-impact clinical operations and care management work for healthcare organizations.

The platform is powered by AI that understands clinical context to deliver personalized patient engagement and complete workflow actions, all while knowing when and how to engage Thesis’s team of clinical experts-in-the-loop. Because Thesis completes tasks end-to-end and delivers the result, it does not require staff or providers to learn a new tool and keeps existing workflows intact.

“2025 was a defining year for Thesis as we moved from design partnerships into a clear commercial trajectory and growing customer base,” said Niren Gandra, M.D., Co-Founder and CEO at Thesis Care. “We’ve proven that we can extend clinical capacity and allow our customers to do more for patients at a scale that has historically been impossible. Now, we’re ready to bring that to every healthcare organization that needs it.”

Thesis’s partnerships cover thousands of providers and include large provider organizations across primary and specialty care. Partners include US Heart & Vascular, Essen Health Care, Springfield Clinic, Unio Health Partners, and Allied Digestive Health. The company is currently expanding into partnerships with health systems and health plan care teams.

“Thesis lets us deliver better care at scale – without the operational lift you’d expect,” said Shaivali Shah, SVP of Operations at Allied Digestive Health…

Full release here, originally announced March 25th, 2026.

< + > Bonus Features – April 12, 2026 – 67% of consumers say AI’s time savings will make providers more engaged, 27% of desktop devices in healthcare are unencrypted, plus 25 more stories

Welcome to the weekly edition of Healthcare IT Today 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.

Studies

• A report from EBSCO Clinical Decisions and DynaMed found two-thirds of consumers believe the time saved by AI will make their providers more engaged – though there’s a strong preference for evidence-based AI over general-purpose AI.
• A survey of chief nursing officers from Wolters Kluwer Health found 53% of organizations have virtual nursing programs in place, and another 34% plan to launch in 2026.
• A Qventus survey found 94% of healthcare CIOs believe delays in operationalizing AI would put their organization at a competitive disadvantage.
• A CENTEGIX survey found 54% of healthcare staff staff safety measures are a top priority when considering a job.
• Research from Omnissa found 27% of desktop devices in healthcare are unencrypted, and 60% of Android devices are 5 or more operating system versions behind the latest update.

Partnerships

• Penguin Ai launched its Prior Authorization and Medical Coding solutions as Snowflake Native Apps on Snowflake Marketplace.
• Reputation management capabilities from rater8 are now available in athenaOne from athenahealth. In addition, athenahealth named Relatient a Preferred Solution Partner for patient scheduling.
• The consumer pharmacy pricing app RxWallet is live on First Databank’s FDB Vela ePrescribing network.
• Prescription navigation company Scripta Insights is partnering with RxUtility, a medication affordability platform, in an effort to improve prescription pricing transparency.
• Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing is collaborating with Johnson & Johnson to advance disaster preparedness, response, and recovery education for nurses.

Products

• AdvancedMD launched AdvancedMD eMAR, its Electronic Medication Administration Record for medication workflows.
• Cedar expanded Cedar Intelligence with new capabilities to support personalized patient billing workflows.
• Fortrea unveiled Fortrea Intelligent Technology to support clinical trial operations.

Implementations

• Houston Methodist deployed Midstream Health‘s financial intelligence platform for enterprise operations.
• Ohio-based Southwest General deployed Oracle Health Clinical AI Agent Clinical Note across 18 ambulatory specialties.
• Caribbean group insurer Coralisle Group expanded its partnership with Personify Health, a wellness platform.

Company News

• CloudWave cybersecurity subsidiary BlueOrange Compliance was approved as a MEDITECH Alliance Program Collaborator.
• CenTrak received Epic Toolbox designation for the real-time location system (RTLS) category.
• Research from Creyos demonstrated that digital behavioral health screeners can accurately detect Alzheimer’s disease in approximately six minutes.
• Virtual sleep clinic Dreem Health joined Amazon’s Health Benefits Connector.
• GE HealthCare received FDA clearance for True Definition DL, its deep learning image reconstruction tool for computed tomography (CT).

People

• Remote surgery platform Sovato appointment Dr. Brian Miller as CEO.
• Body composition monitoring company ImpediMed appointed Erik Anderson as Managing Director and CEO.
• B2B interpreting and translation services GLOBO Language Solutions appointed Ryan Toohil as CTO.
• Epicore Biosystems, which makes wearables that analyze sweat, named Brian Reagan as Chief Commercial Officer.
• Data workflow vendor Arcadia appointed Chris Rallo as Chief Product Officer.
• Digital health marketplace AVIA named Ashley Allen as Chief Customer Officer and promoted Kristen Flint to Chief Operating Officer.

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.

< + > Weekly Roundup – April 11, 2025

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.

Why Greenway Health Ditched the EHR and Started Over with Novare. CEO Richard Atkin and CMO Dr. Michael Blackman sat down with Colin Hung to discuss why Greenway built an EHR that’s AI by design, what exactly that means, and how it can power proactive care. Read more…

A Bold CMS Prediction, Behavioral Science, and What You Missed at RISE National 2026. At the health plan conference, Colin heard a CMS official say clinicians will have access to better medical knowledge in the tools they use thanks to AI. He also learned you can’t automate empathy, especially when nudges are repeatedly unanswered. Read more…

Why Healthcare Safety Is a Data Problem. August Calhoun at RLDatix sat down with John Lynn to explain why organizations need to evolve from incident reporting to process improvement when it comes to using data to strengthen patient safety and modernize operations. Read more…

Addressing Governance, Ethical, and Regulatory Considerations in Deploying AI. Clear accountability, transparency, compliance, humans in the loop, and audit trails are just some of the main considerations, according to the Healthcare IT Today community. Read more… 

Evaluating AI Models for Reliability, Transparency, and Bias. This is critical for using AI in clinical and administrative workflows. The experts in the Healthcare IT Today community recommended ensuring variability and observability of data, along with continuous evaluation and validation. Read more…

Using AI to Support Clinical Decision Making, Operational Efficiency, and Patient Engagement. The most important use cases, according to the Healthcare IT Today community, include reducing administrative burdens, helping predict operational bottlenecks, and coordinating care transitions. Read more…

Why Power and Electric Companies Exhibited at HIMSS26 – and Why CIOs Should Take Note. Health systems can’t wait until the 11th hour to figure out if their facilities can handle low-latency edge AI tools, Malcolm Murray at Schneider Electric told Colin. Read more…

An Empathy-First Approach to Chronic Illness in Vulnerable Populations. Dan McDonald and Lauren Barca at 86Borders talked to John about engaging with populations that face multiple barriers to accessing care but may distrust the healthcare system and the technology tools it offers to them. Read more…

Life Sciences Today Podcast: Why AI Agents Will Save CROs, Not Replace Them. Medable Chief Customer Officer Alison Holland joined Danny Lieberman to chat about how SaaS automates the low-value work of clinical trials to remove the barriers to patient participation. Read more…

Healthcare RCM Needs to Catch Up With Other Industries. It’s time for RCM to shift from reactive cleanup to proactive design, said WebPT COO Monte Sandler. That depends on accurate information capture at intake and guidance at the time of documentation to prevent errors in the first place. Read more…

AI Made HCC Coding Harder; This Is How to Fix It. Ritwik Jain at Martlet.AI and John Snow Labs said AI tools are overwhelming clinicians and coders with low-quality outputs that lack context or clinical relevance. That’s why organizations need AI tools purpose-built for risk adjustment. Read more…

How to Get More From Your Microsoft Cloud Deployment. The key is to approach the Microsoft ecosystem as a connected whole rather than a series of disconnected tools, according to Amol Dalvi at Nerdio. Specific tips include deploying unified endpoint management and automated policy enforcement. Read more… 

Patient Warming and Secure Positioning in the OR Don’t Require Separate Solutions. Temperature and stability are critical patient safety variables that are traditionally managed separately. That’s why Gentherm integrated warning into securement pads, the company’s Adam Hauke said. Read more…

Becoming the First Agentic Native Company in U.S. Healthcare. DeepCura CEO Fernando Cowan described how the company, with two employees and seven autonomous AI agents, was designed so the same AI agents the company sells to clinicians also run the company’s internal operations. Read more…

This Week’s Health IT Jobs for April 8, 2026: UAB Medicine (Birmingham, Alabama) is looking for a Chief Technology Officer. Read more…

Bonus Features for April 5, 2026: Classis ONC is back! Plus, 84% of behavioral health patients are comfortable sharing personal data if it improves support. Read more…

Funding and M&A Activity:

• Brokerage platform Gyde acquired Avid Health, a Medicare agency based in Palm Beach, Florida.
• Care enablement company IKS Health acquired ThinkDTM, a digital services company.
• Neonatal and pediatric digital care company AngelEye Health acquired SupportSpot from Child Life On Call, which provides psychosocial support for pediatric patients and their families.
• Achieve Partners sold Optimum Healthcare IT to Infosys.
• Enterprise AI platform Qualified Health announced a $125 million Series B financing round.
• AI orchestration platform for RCM Adonis raised $40 million in Series C funding.
• Clinical AI platform Avo announced a $10 million Series A financing round.
• Maternal care platform Flourish Care announced $5.7 million in oversubscribed seed financing.

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

< + > Health IT Conferences, ChatGPT Second Opinion, and Oracle “House Flipping” – Fun Friday

Happy Friday everyone!  We hope you had an amazing week and helped many patients through the work you do.  Since it’s Friday, we’re back with another edition of Fun Friday where we try to bring a smile to your face and maybe some insight into the crazy world that is healthcare as you head into your weekend.  This week we have a number of great cartoons that I think will cause you to pause and also laugh.

This picture from Khalid Turk definitely captures some of the feelings many of us have coming out of the ViVE and HIMSS conferences.  Especially with them being back to back.  As you know, we attend a lot of healthcare IT conferences, but those 2 back to back is a lot.  The bag of conference swag and the robot saying “You were qualified” definitely sends an interesting message too.  Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that we’re holding our Swaay.Health LIVE marketing conference later this month if you want to learn how to not connect like a robot to attendees at conferences.

Today on ChatGPT for health https://t.co/NmgD92TSKI pic.twitter.com/NJWDLHdVLU

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) February 24, 2026

I think we’ve often heard about patients using ChatGPT for Second Opinions.  The irony of the doctor using ChatGPT as a second opinion is funny.  I especially love how Eric Topol links to a study about how well ChatGPT is at triaging (ie. not very good).

What’s interesting is that this almost seems inevitable to me in some form.  Although, we need much better guardrails and privacy than what ChatGPT offers.

This next cartoon was actually sent in by a regular Healthcare IT Today reader who created this graphic after the large cuts by Oracle.  In the cartoon, this reader compares Oracle’s decisions to house flipping (ie. taking from Cerner to build data centers for AI).  See what you think.

I personally think this comparison is interesting.  There’s no doubt that Oracle sees the future revenue from these AI data centers.  Although, I think Cerner is just a small portion of the dollars they really need for this effort.  So, if it was a house flip, Oracle didn’t do a very good job on the house flip which is kind of sad.  In the right hands, Cerner could have been so much more.  That said, I’m still interested to see what Oracle does with Cerner.  While Epic certainly has a dominant position, I’ve learned more and more about how Oracle Health is having success with their existing clients and some niches where Epic doesn’t really play.  So, we’ll see how it plays out.

Happy Friday everyone!  Have a great weekend!

< + > AI Agents Won’t Replace CROs — They’ll Save Them – Life Sciences Today Podcast Episode 56

We’re excited to be back for another episode of the Life Sciences Today Podcast by Healthcare IT Today. My guest today is Alison Holland, Chief Customer Officer at Medable! In this episode, I talk with Holland about how her journey from London nurse to Covance veteran to digital trial leader shapes Medable’s strategy.

Holland started at the bedside and then spent nearly 20 years at a major CRO – Covance. She learned where trials really break: overloaded sites, fragmented systems, and patients battling logistics instead of disease. Medable’s answer is a reusable SaaS platform plus tightly scoped AI agents—first for CRAs, then for TMF, and next for sites—that automate the manual, low‑value work while keeping humans firmly in the loop.

She walks through concrete wins: PRO compliance jumping from ~75% to 95%, 20% more primary endpoint data, and up to 100 hours saved in study startup by configuring from therapeutic‑area libraries instead of rebuilding from scratch.

Holland’s chosen industry anti‑pattern is “change fatigue”: an exhausted ecosystem that no longer believes transformation will stick. Her counter is precision use cases that deliver undeniable value, build momentum, and make it possible to say, credibly, “Yes, we can” this time.

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

• Tell me about your journey.
• Who are your customers and how do you create value for them?
• What’s Medable’s sweet spot for the size of the customer, the kind of customer, or the phase of the study?
• We saw this recurring pattern where the decisions would be taken in the last month before the trial, and a subpattern where, in the first two weeks, there would very often be a protocol revision. Is that your experience as well?
• Do you have to do a custom build for every customer and every trial?
• How do you capture the value?
• Are we going to see AI Agents replacing CROs in our lifetime?
• What are three things you want to do for your customers in 2026?
• What is the biggest anti-pattern in the clinical R&D industry today?

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

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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!