Sunday, October 18, 2026

< + > Bonus Features – October 18, 2026 – 74% of cyberattacks lead to disruptions in patient care, 56% of caregivers use AI tools to support their responsibilities, plus 30 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.

Stats

Partnerships

Products

Implementations

Company News

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.



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Saturday, October 17, 2026

< + > Weekly Roundup – October 17, 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.

Shifting With or Without Permission From the Healthcare System” at Withings. The company’s Antoine Pivron talked to John Lynn about consumer and physician interest in longitudinal monitoring of chronic conditions, even if business models still embrace fee-for-service care. Read more…

Announcements and AI Perspectives at Workday Rising. Many of today’s innovations don’t technically use use generative AI, John  learned – but generative AI opened the door for organizations to be more accepting of automations. But are orgs and their users ready for the pace of change? Read more…

Top Telehealth and Virtual Health Voices on LinkedIn. Get to know the health system, vendor, and professional organization leaders explaining trends, policy changes, and the latest research into telehealth outcomes. Read more…

Life Sciences Today Podcast: Revolutionizing Stroke Recovery. Danny Lieberman sat down with Dr. Leo Petrossian at Kandu, which is developing at-home brain-computer interface therapy for chronic stroke. Read more…

Healthcare IT Today Podcast: Is Healthcare Vulnerable to Runaway AI? John and Colin debated if healthcare is closer to AI-driven adverse events or true interoperability. Read more…

Audit Readiness Is Decided Months Before the First Chart Request Arrives. Readiness results from upstream conversations about how documents are structured, who owns the workflow, and whether key provider relationships already exist, noted Michael Egbert at Sherpas Healthcare Solutions. Read more…

Healthcare Sovereignty Is Overdue, and Patients are Demanding Better. Being granted access to your own data is not the same as having a say in it or the ability to contribute to it, said Jessica Chalk at myStoria. The fix is patient-directed data infrastructure governed by real interoperability standards. Read more…

Patient-Facing AI Must Know When to Call for Help. Healthcare is rolling out patient-facing technology that’s not equipped to answer the questions many patients have, according to Steve Pappas at eGain. AI systems need permission to say “I don’t know” and route patients to a human. Read more…

AI Will Turn Up the Heat on Humanity Before It Destroys Us. James Moade at Accreditation Commission for Health Care said there will be several warning signs that AI is taking over healthcare – namely, that no one knows who owns a decision and AI is acting on behalf of clinical teams. Read more…

A Successful AI Payer Call Should Leave More Than a Transcript. RCM teams still needs to know what the payer actually confirmed, how to verify it, what remains uncertain, and what should happen next, noted Rahul Agrawal at QuickIntell. Read more…

This Week’s Health IT Jobs for October 14, 2026: OrthoVirginia is looking for a Chief Medical Officer. Read more…

Bonus Features for October 11, 2026: 49% of patients have administered a self-test, and 43% have used an AI chatbot instead of seeing a doctor because of cost concerns. Read more…

Funding and M&A Activity:

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



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Friday, October 16, 2026

< + > UrgentIQ Announces Strategic Growth Investment From Five Elms Capital

Five Elms Capital Leads Investment to Accelerate UrgentIQ’s AI Platform and Expansion Across the Rapidly Growing Urgent Care Market

  • UrgentIQ has received a Series A growth investment from Five Elms Capital, accelerating the company’s mission to build the definitive AI-native operating system for urgent care centers
  • The investment will accelerate UrgentIQ’s expansion beyond the EMR into a unified clinical and financial platform, including AI-powered documentation and coding, automated revenue cycle management, insurance verification, and checkout
  • Five Elms Capital brings deep experience scaling vertical AI-native software businesses and will support UrgentIQ as it continues to grow and innovate across the urgent care industry

UrgentIQ, the AI-native electronic medical record (EMR) purpose-built for urgent care centers, announced today a $15M Series A growth investment from Five Elms Capital. The partnership will accelerate UrgentIQ’s product roadmap to expand AI-powered clinical workflows while scaling the team to better serve a rapidly growing network of urgent care operators across the country.

Founded by Nat Gibbs, UrgentIQ has quickly established itself as an AI-native platform built specifically to support urgent care centers, earning a 9.7/10 average customer satisfaction rating. Unlike legacy EMRs adapted from hospital and primary care environments, UrgentIQ was built from the ground up around the unique economics and workflow of urgent care – where speed, throughput, documentation, coding, and collections are tightly interconnected. Customers leveraging UrgentIQ platform cited significant improvement in throughput times of patients in their facilities, through agentic AI-powered automation and a seamless experience for the end user.

“Urgent care is one of the most operationally demanding environments in healthcare: patients arrive sporadically and providers have minutes, not hours, to make decisions; plus every visit has to move seamlessly from care to payment,” said Nat Gibbs, Founder and CEO at UrgentIQ. “And yet, the industry’s core software was largely built for healthcare environments that operate nothing like this. We believe urgent care deserves its own operating system – one designed around speed, intelligence, and automation from the ground up. That is what we’re building with UrgentIQ.”

With Five Elms’ backing, UrgentIQ will accelerate development of its core platform, including a native billing module to bring revenue cycle management fully in-house, advanced AI-powered diagnosis and coding capabilities, live insurance verification, and an AI checkout agent. These capabilities are designed to help clinics see more patients, capture more revenue, and reduce administrative burden across every stage of the patient visit. As the urgent care market consolidates around private equity-backed platforms and multi-site groups, UrgentIQ is positioned to serve both independent operators and larger organizations seeking a modern, scalable platform that works across their entire network.

Joe Onofrio, Partner at Five Elms Capital, commented on the investment, “UrgentIQ has built a platform with exceptional operator adoption and product satisfaction, and the metrics reflect it. We are proud to partner with Nat and the team as they bring a modern, purpose-built solution to a market that has been long overdue for one.”

About UrgentIQ

UrgentIQ is the AI-native operating system for urgent care. Built from the ground up around the speed, throughput, and economics of walk-in care, UrgentIQ brings scheduling, patient intake, clinical documentation, AI-powered coding, revenue cycle management, and payments together on a single intelligent platform. By embedding AI directly into the workflows that run an urgent care center, UrgentIQ helps operators automate administrative work, move patients through care faster, and capture more of the revenue they earn. UrgentIQ is trusted by independent operators and multi-site urgent care groups across the country. For more information, please visit urgentiq.com.

About Five Elms Capital

Five Elms Capital is a growth investor in B2B software companies delivering innovative, AI-powered solutions to vertical end markets. We provide capital and resources to help companies accelerate growth and further cement their role as industry leaders.

With over $3 billion in assets under management and a team of over 80 professionals, Five Elms has invested in more than 70 software platforms worldwide. Beyond providing capital, Five Elms delivers strategic and operational expertise, focused on executing initiatives that move the needle on AI, growth, retention, and product to set companies up for long-term success. For more information, visit fiveelms.com.

Originally announced September 11th, 2026



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Thursday, October 15, 2026

< + > H1 Acquires Defacto Health to Strengthen Provider Network Intelligence

Acquisition Brings Provider-Network Data and Experienced Healthcare Data Leaders to H1

H1, the AI-powered platform that connects the world to the right doctors, today announced it has acquired Defacto Health, a healthcare data company specializing in provider network intelligence. Defacto maintains data on payer networks, healthcare providers, and the insurance plans providers accept, helping health plans assess directory accuracy, isolate error clusters, and benchmark their networks.

The acquisition brings a longtime H1 data partner into the company and strengthens H1’s investment in the connected, high-quality healthcare data customers use to understand providers, networks, and access to care. Defacto will operate as part of H1, with co-founders Ron Urwongse and Tarun J. Theogaraj joining H1 to continue leading the work.

“Health plans are under continued pressure to maintain accurate provider directories while managing information that changes constantly across providers, facilities, plans, and networks,” said Ariel Katz, Co-Founder and CEO at H1. “We have worked with Defacto and know firsthand the value of its data and the expertise of its team. Bringing Defacto into H1 continues to strengthen the data foundation behind our platform and helps us continue to provide health plans and their industry partners with the tools and intelligence they need to understand their networks, identify inaccuracies, and make better-informed decisions.

Mr. Urwongse and Mr. Theogaraj bring longstanding experience in provider data and interoperability. Before founding Defacto, both led provider-data work at CAQH. Urwongse managed provider-data and interoperability solutions, while Theogaraj managed provider-data solutions and later led product work for CAQH’s flagship provider-data platform.

“Provider and payer data is complex, dynamic, and foundational to so many healthcare decisions,” said Ron Urwongse, Co-Founder of Defacto Health. “We built Defacto to make provider network information more accurate, accessible, and useful. Joining H1 gives our team the opportunity to invest further in that work and apply it within a broader healthcare intelligence platform that helps organizations connect with the right doctors.”

By bringing Defacto’s provider-network expertise together with H1’s healthcare data, technology, and AI, H1 will continue building a more connected view of the healthcare ecosystem, strengthening the intelligence that helps organizations identify, understand, and connect to advance the vision of connecting the world to the right doctors.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About H1

H1 is an AI-powered platform that helps identify and engage the right doctors for critical workflows across pharma, health plan, health system, and technology companies. At the core of the platform is H1’s Doctor Graph—a structured representation of physician identity, expertise, relationships, and behavioral signals, creating a powerful network effect as it is continuously enriched by participants across the healthcare ecosystem. Built on one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive global datasets of healthcare professionals, H1 combines deep healthcare data with agentic AI workflows to power critical workflows across drug development, medical and commercial engagement, care navigation, and provider data and network intelligence. Today, 85% of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies and 9 out of 10 of the top health plans trust H1 as a critical partner in building a healthier future for all.

Learn more at h1.com.

About Defacto Health

Defacto Health aggregates, organizes, and streamlines access to payer and provider data, helping organizations pursue innovative use cases across healthcare. Greater data liquidity and transparency unlock novel uses that will transform how healthcare is operated, organized, and accessed. Defacto’s team is led by provider-data and interoperability veterans who have deployed healthcare data sets used by hundreds of payers, millions of providers, and tens of millions of patients. Defacto works closely with payers to support compliance with government requirements and to provide constructive feedback on the data and APIs they publish, and collaborates with health tech innovators to understand their use cases and data needs.

Originally announced September 9th, 2026



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Wednesday, October 14, 2026

< + > Patient-Facing AI Must Know When to Call for Help

The following is a guest article by Steve Pappas, Head of Innovation at eGain

Lately, it seems that we can’t turn on the TV or scroll through our social media feeds without stumbling across a high-level politician, news personality, or celebrity moralizing about the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI), especially in high-impact, customer-centric fields such as healthcare.

AI is rapidly becoming an integral part of the healthcare industry, transforming it in ways we could not have imagined even ten years ago. And while the technology offers the potential for greater efficiency in how providers diagnose, treat, and manage patients, its implementation and integration must first and foremost account for the single most important aspect of healthcare: the patient-provider relationship.

The Trust Factor

As more technology becomes embedded in the clinical decision-making processes of providers and the everyday care of patients, it is critical that AI be integrated in a manner that strengthens the relationship, not in a way that damages trust, empathy, or human connection.

Even today, many patient questions are answered through automated chatbots, but these tools cannot understand the nuances of every case or accurately resolve every interaction.

Patient-facing AI must be designed to recognize uncertainty and nuance and to escalate complex questions to a live representative. As these tools become more capable of recognizing their limits, trust in the process increases, and patient frustration declines.

When AI Misses the Warning Signs

Picture a woman in her 60s, two days out from a cardiac catheterization, opened her health system’s app at 11:40 on a Tuesday night and typed: “Is it normal for the puncture site to be warm and a little swollen?”

The chatbot immediately responds that the clinic is currently closed and will reopen at 9:00 a.m. the next day, then links to a page about parking.

This hypothetical experience encapsulates the entire problem in one sentence: the bot didn’t do anything wrong, it just didn’t know it was in over its head.

The healthcare industry is rolling out patient-facing technology that is not equipped to answer the questions many patients have. While AI can certainly field elementary inquiries such as billing questions, appointment scheduling, or parking details, in most deployments, the technology is incapable of recognizing the moment it starts to become harmful. In this example, AI provided the wrong answer in a confident manner, which means it stopped being useful and became dangerous.

If a true resolution isn’t within its capabilities, the system, in essence, provides a “close-enough” approximation with total composure, and the patient believes that the answer is reliable. In contrast, a real-life interaction is more instinctive. If a human representative doesn’t know the answer, they might, for instance, indicate that this is not their area of expertise and seek out another, more knowledgeable representative.

In other words, saying “I don’t know” is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it is a far more valuable response than a “close-enough” answer from an AI tool designed to eliminate “I don’t know.” Because these systems are ultimately measured by escalations (how many times they have to turn to a live representative), the designers tune them specifically to eliminate the one behavior that protects patients.

Teach AI What It Does Not Know 

If we don’t design a level of uncertainty into these systems, it is unlikely to appear on its own. So, instead of designing AI to be infallible, perhaps these systems should also account for areas where it is unsafe to approximate. I refer to this as “negative knowledge”: a list of topics for which the only answer is a real person, no matter how the question is phrased. These might include post-surgery symptoms, medication doses, or any time the word “fear” appears in a patient’s question.

One organization I worked with built a system with what the team referred to as a “boundary page.” It was a document just over a page long, maintained by a nurse informaticist and reviewed quarterly by a physician. The document listed every specific situation that would require the tool to stop and route the patient to a live representative. And although the document was simple in its wording, it was anything but simple in its scope, relying on more than two thousand articles for substantiation. Most importantly, it gave the system permission to say “I don’t know.”

Escalation is a Handoff, Not a Transfer

I’m quite sure that the most frustrating aspect of trying to connect with a healthcare facility is the endless phone queue or the chatbot that asks, “How can I help you today?” after you’ve spent the last 12 minutes filling out a form required to speak to it.

From a patient’s perspective, this repetitive experience is one of not being heard, akin to being passed around in a telephone loop and having to start from scratch every time a new person picks up the phone.

A true handoff, as opposed to a transfer, must contain four elements:

  1. Understanding: The initial “receiver” understands the full context of what was requested and catalogues the complete interaction
  2. Trust: The patient is told, in plain language, why they are being moved. In the example above, this would be the “I don’t know” scenario, and it represents real care, not a cold brush-off
  3. Exactness: The ultimate “receiver” is the right caregiver, not just the available one; anything else is just a delay tactic
  4. Honesty: If it’s too late at night to escalate to the right representative, the system should indicate this. If the matter is urgent, it should instruct the patient exactly what to do in the meantime; put the patient first

Escalation is Not Failure 

Most dashboards I have seen treat escalations as defects and are designed to drive escalation rates to zero. On the contrary, I would argue that a patient-facing tool that never escalates is likely answering questions that it shouldn’t.

And it’s not a complex measurement. If a patient contacts the system a second time or multiple times after the initial interaction, this is most likely indicative of a system that has decided it resolved something it really hasn’t. If a human auditor indicates that the interaction should have been escalated, that’s surely a “miss.” If a patient has to start over after a transfer, that’s a failure. If those three measurements are good, your system is likely operating successfully from both the patient and provider perspectives.

Accountability Cannot Be Automated

When a provider gives the wrong answer, it’s a mistake. The person who owns the knowledge owns the risk of making that mistake. AI tools should be, and already are in some industries, treated the same way. If a healthcare chatbot gives the wrong answer, the healthcare organization should be held accountable. Healthcare is not an exception.

Ultimately, this means that the system needs an owner, a review protocol, a review cadence, and an auditable version history. It means ensuring both legal and regulatory compliance and reviewing an organization’s responsibilities and authority (its boundary page) before incidents occur, not after. Lastly, it means establishing “I don’t knows” with a person who has actually spent time with patients and fully understands that some questions lead to more complex ones.

The Most Trusted AI Will Know Its Limits

Of course, none of this is an argument against the technology. These tools are already used to supplement overworked staff and provide answers during off-hours. But the systems that will earn patients’ trust over the next few years will be the ones built with humility and that know when to call for help.



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< + > This Week’s Health IT Jobs – October 14, 2026

It can be very overwhelming scrolling through job board after job board in search of a position that fits your wants and needs. Let us take that stress away by finding a mix of great health IT jobs for you! We hope you enjoy this look at some of the health IT jobs we saw healthcare organizations trying to fill this week.

Here’s a quick look at some of the health IT jobs we found:

If none of these jobs fit your needs, be sure to check out our previous health IT job listings.

Do you have an open health IT position that you are looking to fill? Contact us here with a link to the open position and we’ll be happy to feature it in next week’s article at no charge!

*Note: These jobs are listed by Healthcare IT Today as a free service to the community. Healthcare IT Today does not endorse or vouch for the company or the job posting. We encourage anyone applying to these jobs to do their own due diligence.



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Tuesday, October 13, 2026

< + > Fullscript Announces Strategic Investment from Altas Partners and L Catterton

Fullscript, a leading platform for practitioners delivering whole-person care, today announced that L Catterton and Altas Partners (Altas) have agreed to acquire a majority stake in the Company from HGGC, LLC and Snapdragon Capital Partners, LLC (Snapdragon). The investment will help Fullscript further expand its platform and clinical support capabilities for practitioners and extend its reach across the North American healthcare market. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 2011, Fullscript supports practitioners with an integrated platform providing access to data, diagnostic resources, and tools they use to deliver more personalized, preventative care. Today, more than 135,000 healthcare practitioners use Fullscript to support care for 10 million patients annually across North America, with capabilities spanning evidence-based, practitioner-directed supplement recommendations and fulfillment, laboratory management, wearable health data integration, and tools designed to improve patient adherence and outcomes.

“Practitioners are at the core of our business. We have built Fullscript around a simple belief: they should have the tools and information needed to see the whole patient and deliver better care. That belief will continue to guide how we grow. Altas and L Catterton share our conviction in where healthcare is headed, and their investment and experience will help us accelerate that vision,” said Kyle Braatz, Co-Founder and CEO at Fullscript. “We are grateful to HGGC and Snapdragon for the invaluable support over the last five years and are excited for the next chapter ahead.”

“The convergence of conventional and functional medicine is happening at a rapid pace. Millions of Americans are seeking trusted sources of education and treatment solutions to manage chronic conditions and prevent disease in order to live their healthiest life. Practitioners require a platform that can provide trusted whole-health protocols and products that are integrated into their daily practice management and assures safety and efficacy. Fullscript does just that. We are looking forward to helping the Fullscript team continue to build the most trusted and independent brand in all of whole-health care,” said Marc Magliacano, Managing Partner at L Catterton.

“Fullscript has become integral to healthcare practitioners by building a comprehensive platform around their evolving needs. Working alongside Kyle and the team, we will leverage our relationships and operating resources to build on Fullscript’s strong momentum, deepen practitioner support, and help more patients take a proactive approach to extending their healthspan,” Rajan Shah, Partner at L Catterton, added.

“Fullscript has established itself as a clear leader in whole-person care, with an exceptional management team and a differentiated model that position the company for significant continued growth,” said Paul Emery, Partner at Altas. “We have spent considerable time studying this market and have been particularly impressed by the strength of Fullscript’s platform, the trust it has earned from practitioners, and the critical role it plays in helping them care for their patients.”

Akshay Kumar, Partner at Altas, added, “We make a select number of investments each year and hold ourselves to a high bar. Fullscript is exactly the kind of exceptional company we look to partner with: a category leader with a mission-driven team and compelling growth potential. We’re excited to bring our experience supporting leading healthcare businesses to help Fullscript build on its momentum in the years ahead.”

“Over the course of our partnership, we have supported the Company’s evolution into a leading platform for practitioners delivering whole person care, including through investments in its clinical support capabilities, technology and growth initiatives,” said HGGC. “This transaction reflects the exceptional work of the Fullscript team and the meaningful value created through our partnership. We are proud of the Company’s progress and confident that Altas and L Catterton are well positioned to support Fullscript as it continues to advance its mission and pursue its next phase of growth.”

Fullscript enters this next phase with significant momentum across its platform. Most recently, University Hospitals became the latest major health system to integrate Fullscript into its Epic workflow, enabling providers to recommend clinician-grade supplements directly within the EHR. In April 2026, the Company launched Fullscript Journeys, which enables providers to deliver more personalized, consumer-grade health experiences while keeping clinical guidance at the center of care. In January 2026, Fullscript partnered with Oura to bring wearable biometric data directly into clinical workflows, giving providers a more complete view of their patients by bringing together wearable data, lab results, and treatment history in one place. The Company’s 2024 acquisition of Rupa Health added advanced laboratory ordering and management tools, further expanding the breadth of the Fullscript platform.

Centerview Partners served as financial advisor to Fullscript. Evercore, Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, and RBC Capital Markets served as financial advisors, and McDermott Will & Emery and Kirkland & Ellis served as legal counsel to both Altas and L Catterton. Jefferies LLC and William Blair served as financial advisors to HGGC and Snapdragon. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

About Fullscript

Founded in 2011, Fullscript is a leading platform for practitioners delivering whole person care. With a full suite of clinical support tools that make it easier for practices to deliver personalized care more efficiently and effectively – Fullscript has helped over 135,000 practitioners serving 10 million patients with seamless access to high-quality supplements, industry-leading labs, and smart adherence tools. For more information, visit fullscript.com, or follow Fullscript on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.

About Altas Partners

Altas Partners is a North American private equity firm focused on selectively acquiring high-quality, durable businesses with compelling growth potential. The firm’s focused approach drives conviction and fosters deep partnerships with management teams and founders, with dedicated capabilities in operations, AI enablement, and talent to accelerate value creation. Founded in 2012, Altas operates from offices in Toronto and New York, is 100% partner-owned, and manages more than $10 billion on behalf of leading global institutional investors. For more information about Altas, please visit altas.com.

About L Catterton

L Catterton is the largest global consumer-focused investment firm, managing approximately $40 billion of equity capital across three multi-product platforms: private equity, credit, and real estate. The firm’s funds have the ability to invest between $5 million and $5 billion, across the capital structure, in well-positioned consumer businesses. Leveraging deep category insight, operational excellence, and a broad network of strategic relationships, L Catterton’s team of more than 200 investment and operating professionals across 18 offices partners with management teams to drive differentiated value creation across its portfolio. Founded in 1989, the firm has made over 300 investments in some of the world’s most iconic consumer brands. For more information about L Catterton, please visit lcatterton.com.

About HGGC

HGGC is a values-driven, partnership-focused private investment firm. The Firm’s ecosystem of investors, operators, and professionals is united by the shared mission to develop leading enterprises and build long-term value together. HGGC invests in technology, business services, financial services, and consumer enterprises. The Firm is based in Palo Alto, Calif. and manages over $10 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2026. More information, including a complete list of current and former investments, is available at hggc.com.

About Snapdragon

Founded in 2018, Snapdragon Capital Partners is a growth equity and buyout firm making concentrated investments. The firm has a distinguished reputation in partnering with consumer companies supporting whole person health, with relevant experience in fitness, vitamins & supplements, beauty, better-for-you foods, consumer health, and consumer education.

Originally announced September 10th, 2026



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< + > Bonus Features – October 18, 2026 – 74% of cyberattacks lead to disruptions in patient care, 56% of caregivers use AI tools to support their responsibilities, plus 30 more stories

Welcome to the weekly edition of Healthcare IT Today Bonus Features . This article will be a weekly roundup of interesting stories, product ...