< + > Weekly Roundup – September 19, 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.

Ensuring Privacy, Security, and Compliance in Consumer-Facing Healthcare Applications. The key to making this happen, the Healthcare IT Today community said, is building trust and transparency from the beginning. To do that, privacy has to be a conversation for product teams, not legal teams. Read more…

Healthcare Networks Need Ubiquity More Than Standards. John summarized an article from Brendan Keeler that noted (among other things) why AI bots are overwhelming voice calls and EHR systems and also why standards should be simple if there’s a need for them (which there is). Read more…

Integrating Direct-to-Consumer Solutions With Clinical and Enterprise Systems. As this poses quite the challenge, the Healthcare IT Today community recommended thinking about information flows, resolving identity issues, and ensuring bidirectional connections. Read more…

Life Sciences Today Podcast: Connecting Humans and Clinical Data. Danny Lieberman talked to Lidia Bernik at MRO about creating value by helping hospitals find patients for clinical trials. Read more…

Healthcare IT Today Podcast: Epic UGM and Health IT Australia. John Lynn went to Wisconsin, and Colin Hung went to Sydney. They discussed the biggest takeaways from Epic and unpacked the status of Australia as an EMR greenfield. Read more…

A Better Health Record Shows More Than What Was Measured. Lisa Zahakos at HEART RESERVE said she always asks clinical leaders a key question: Can a woman and her clinician see what changed over time without having to reconstruct her history at every visit? It starts with shared timelines and patient-reported outcomes. Read more…

Fragmented Communications Are Breaking Care Models. Frontline healthcare workers use an average of 7 communication tools daily. Shifting communication infrastructure from a support function to a strategic enabler means focusing on three priorities for modernization, according to Luiz Domingos at Mitel. Read more…

Blood Labeling Safety When Systems Are Down. Jeff Dragoo at Digi-Trax noted that safe blood-related workflows depend on cross-functional collaboration, not just technology. That means placing an emphasis on emergency preparedness and contingency plans. Read more…

Modernizing the Front End of Healthcare. According to Thomas Urie at FormAssembly, AI agents present an opportunity to move beyond simply digitizing existing workflows and begin redesigning them. Here, accessibility presents the greatest opportunity. Read more…

The Massive Blind Spot in Healthcare Language Access. Missing seemingly insignificant interactions has a cumulative effect for patients who don’t speak English, noted Jeffrey J. Munks at LanguageLine and Jeff Burrow at 3Birds Strategy. The answer: Immediately accessible translation through handheld devices. Read more…

This Week’s Health IT Jobs for September 16, 2026: Multiple roles in privacy and cybersecurity. Read more…

Bonus Features for September 13, 2026: More than 60% of healthcare orgs report employees use shadow AI tools; 48% of orgs say document delays often negatively impact patient care. Read more…

Funding and M&A Activity:

• Investment firm Francisco Partners acquired Weave Communications, a patient engagement and payments platform.
• Musculoskeletal technology company Globus Medical acquired Higgs Boson Health, a digital healthcare experience company.
• Abridge acquired Altrina, which has built AI agents for automating EHR workflows.
• Hinge Health acquired Cylinder Health, a virtual-first digestive care company.
• Medical imaging network Scan.com closed $220 million in combined equity and debt financing.
• Oncology care company Thyme Care announced $125 million in Series E financing.
• Senior living technology provider Inspiren raised $70 million in Series C funding.
• AI platform Verily Health received investment support from NVIDIA.

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

< + > Scan.com Raises $220 Million | Thyme Care Closes $125+ Million Series E

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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Scan.com Raises $220 Million to Build the Largest Medical Imaging Network in the US

Scan.com has closed $220 million in combined equity and debt financing after doubling revenue over the past year to surpass a $165 million annualized run rate. The new Series C equity round and debt facilities will expand Scan.com’s US footprint and help it become the preeminent diagnostic imaging infrastructure across the nation.

The $90 million equity round was led by Noteus Partners, with participation from Aviva, Concord Health Partners, YZR Capital, Oxford Capital, and others. $130 million of debt facilities supporting M&A and working capital were provided by VerisFi Capital and Atempo Growth.

A $100 Billion Market that is Still Largely Offline

Valued at over $100 billion, the US medical imaging market is one of the largest segments of American healthcare. It is also slow, expensive, fragmented, and still largely offline, with 85% of scans still booked via fax or phone. Patients often wait weeks for a scan, and a national shortage of radiologists and technologists adds further pressure on the system.

Scan.com’s data shows that the same MRI can cost a few hundred dollars at one center and several thousand at another a few miles away, where price is a poor guide to quality. At the same time…

Full release here, originally announced August 31st, 2026.

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Thyme Care Closes $125+ Million Series E, Establishes Thyme Companies to Broaden Its Impact Across the Oncology Ecosystem

Thyme Care, the nationally recognized oncology company, today announced a new Series E financing round of over $125M. Morgan Health led the round, with participation from strategic healthcare investors Humana and CVS Health Ventures, as well as institutional investors AlleyCorp, HealthQuest Capital, Foresite Capital, Concord Health Partners, Frist Cressey Ventures, Town Hall Ventures, and a16z Bio + Health.

The financing brings together strategic investors from across the cancer care ecosystem, including the largest national payers, community oncology, health systems, and leaders in employer-sponsored health care, reflecting favorable investor outlook on Thyme Care’s care model and its potential to take on the broader challenges in cancer care. Today, Thyme Care services are available to more than 10.5 million people across all 50 states, and the company manages more than $7 billion in oncology spend. By aligning care around the patient, the model delivers 5 to 10 percent validated reductions in total cost of care, creating measurable value for patients, providers, and health plan partners. Supported by strong financial discipline, Thyme Care is profitable, generates meaningful positive free cash flow, and is positioned to accelerate its next phase of growth.

“People living with cancer have traditionally been left to coordinate care themselves and pay more along the way. Thyme Care is changing that experience and making it possible to improve cancer care while lowering costs,” said Dan Mendelson, Chief Executive Officer at Morgan Health…

Full release here, originally announced September 2nd, 2026.

< + > Weave Announces Acquisition by Francisco Partners | Globus Medical Announces Acquisition of Higgs Boson Health

Check out today’s featured companies who have recently completed an M&A deal, and be sure to check out the full list of past healthcare IT M&A.

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Weave Announces Acquisition by Francisco Partners

Transaction Accelerates Investment in Weave’s AI-Powered Platform for Healthcare Practices

Weave Stockholders to Receive $7.40 Per Share in Cash, Representing a 34% Premium

Weave Communications, Inc., a leading AI-powered patient engagement and payments platform purpose-built for healthcare practices, and Francisco Partners (FP), a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology companies and technology-enabled businesses, today announced that FP has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Weave, at an aggregate equity valuation of approximately $650 Million.

Under the terms of the agreement, Weave stockholders will receive $7.40 per share in cash, representing a premium of approximately 34% to Weave’s unaffected closing stock price on August 17, 2026, the last full trading day prior to the transaction announcement. Upon completion of the transaction, Weave will cease to trade on the NYSE and become a private company.

Founded in 2008, Weave is a leading all-in-one customer experience and payments software platform for small and medium-sized healthcare businesses. Weave’s software solutions transform how healthcare practices attract, communicate with, and engage patients and clients to grow their business. Following the completion of the transaction, Weave will continue to operate under the Weave name and maintain its headquarters in Lehi, Utah.

“Since our founding in 2008, we have built Weave for a customer most software companies overlook — the independent practices that care for patients in communities across the country. More than 40,000 locations rely on us today,” said Brett White, Chief Executive Officer at Weave…

Full release here, originally announced August 18th, 2026.

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Globus Medical Announces Acquisition of Higgs Boson Health to Transform Healthcare Experience Through AI-Driven Digital Solutions

Globus Medical, Inc., a leading musculoskeletal technology company, today announced the acquisition of Higgs Boson Health, a digital healthcare experience company based in Durham, NC, and incubated out of Duke University. With a mission to transform healthcare experience through digital innovation, Higgs Boson will position Globus Medical to shape patient and provider experience throughout the full episode of care.

“Higgs Boson employs highly experienced teams of software developers and AI scientists who will be joining our team to power our vision of a seamless digital healthcare environment to simplify a patient’s journey through our healthcare system while enhancing real-time information and surgical intelligence available to healthcare providers with the ultimate goal of getting to 95% good outcomes at 10 years for all musculoskeletal surgeries,” said David Paul, Founder and Executive Chairman.

“The acquisition of Higgs Boson and its digital solutions represents the next step in our strategy of enhancing the Globus ecosystem,” commented Keith Pfeil, President and Chief Executive Officer…

Full release here, originally announced August 26th, 2026.

< + > Healthcare Networks Need Ubiquity More than Standards

If you’re not following Brendan Keeler, then you’re missing out.  While I find most of what Brendan publishes quite interesting (Yes, I’m an #HITNerd), I was particularly impressed by his recent piece entitled “Make Networks Dumb Again.”  If you’re into healthcare networks and wondering what the future of interoperability looks like you should go and read the whole piece.  For those that are too lazy to read it or ask their favorite Gen AI bot to summarize it, I wanted to point out a few points he makes that really stand out to me along with some additional commentary.

One of the best points he makes is about the value of ubiquity when it comes to networks.  Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Networks are judged first and foremost on ubiquity. Reaching one person with the coolest messaging app is a novelty, whereas a simple SMS can be relied upon to work. A technically elegant network that reaches 70% of its intended counterparties is decidedly less useful than an ugly, expensive one that reaches 99%.

This is why whenever anyone slams on faxes in healthcare, I always rail back at them.  Fax isn’t an elegant solution.  Fax has its weaknesses.  However, it has the two things that every network wants: everyone can send and receive and we all know the standard.  The ubiquity of Fax is what makes it so powerful.  If there was another alternative that everyone adopted, we’d likely see the fax go away.  Just look at the pager to see what I mean.  Pagers are almost gone in healthcare because the smart phone came along and is essentially ubiquitous.

The problem here is that ubiquity is much harder to achieve than you think.  Plus, creating a standard payload for the network that’s useful is a challenge as well.  Or is it?

Does AI change things so that the payload can be as crude as you want and is it flexible enough to create an ubiquitous network?

Keeler in his article shared an example where this is happening with voice calls in healthcare.  Talk about a crude network, but every organization has a phone and call centers answering those phones.  Apply AI to the phone call as we’re seeing happen across healthcare, and you have a very crude standard (a phone call) and a nearly ubiquitous network.  He described the challenge with this kind of network happening in systems that weren’t designed for this type of scale:

AI lets us reach that point extraordinarily quickly, because the incremental participant does not even need to be malicious. Now both ends of our analog networks are automating in an endless loop following their incentives:

• Consumers and businesses are using outbound agents to work through phone trees.
• Meanwhile, their counterparties are investing in reciprocal voice AI to handle the inbound volume.
• Both sides book ever expanding vendor contracts while volume explodes and the settlement rate on the underlying workflow stays flat.

The casualties are unfortunately us humans, the rapidly diminishing portion of the network volume. We queue behind tireless machines that never get frustrated and to whom another attempt is never not worth the effort. The defensive systems built to absorb and deflect all that traffic inevitably make the network harder for humans to use.

That’s right, the AI bots are going to overwhelm these phone systems, which were built for humans who are impatient and are happy to avoid making a call.  AI bots are exhaustingly patient and happy to tie up phone lines for hours until they achieve their desired outcome.

This reminds me of one of the first companies I met who built an AI bot to call insurance companies.  They had a massive need to get information from the payers for their provider clients and the payers didn’t want to work with them with any sort of API.  The CEO finally said, “Screw it, we’re just going to build a bot to call the insurance company.”

They set the bot to work calling the insurance company to obtain the information their clients needed.  After a little bit of time, the payer reached out to the company because the payer had seen such a high volume of calls coming to their call centers.  The payer asked the company if they wanted to use an API to the payer instead of tying up the payer call center agents.

I think we can all appreciate the irony of this.  Although, what’s interesting is what the CEO then told me next.  He said that the payer wanted to give them free API access.  He told them that he didn’t want the API access to be free.  He wanted to pay the payer for the service.  He figured if humans used to cost $5 per call to the payer and his AI bots calling cost 75 cents per call, then he could reasonably pay the payer 25 cents per API call (these are round numbers since I can’t remember his actual numbers, but they’re directionally accurate).

Why would this company want to pay for API access?  The CEO told me that if he got API access for free, one day some executive at the payer would come along and say “Why are we paying so much to provide an API?  That’s expensive, so let’s just stop doing it.”  The CEO surmised that if the API was a profit center for the payer or at least covered its costs, it was more likely to stick around.

What’s fascinating is that we’re seeing this happen all over healthcare thanks to AI.  Voice calls is one area.  Bots leveraging the EHR user interface is another area.  Screen scraping is about as crude an interface as you can get, but it’s ubiquitous which we’ve highlighted is a super power.  Well, it’s a super power until it starts overwhelming the EHR which designed the UI for humans and not bots.  We’ll see how that battle plays out technically and legally with things like information blocking.

Keeler also pointed out what we really want in our networks:

AI native networks can focus on the shared problems, in both healthcare and beyond! Verizon or USPS don’t attempt to know what you’re saying (hopefully). They (and all dumb networks) just do the middle boring stuff:

• Identity: who you are in a way the other end can verify
• Permissions: who you are acting for and what they authorized you to do
• Routing: how to find the counterparty you are trying to reach
• Trust: whether both ends have agreed to the same rules of the road
• Receipts: what happened provable after the fact

What do you think of this list for what a network needs to provide?  Are we overcomplicating things like healthcare interoperability?  Sure, we’d all love to have the perfect standard that everyone follows.  However, that’s a pipe dream that Keeler appropriately points out will never be “finished.”  Everyone connected with even a simple standard is far more valuable than 70% of people connected with an elegant standard as we shared at the beginning.

Keeler does finish with the assertion that the federal government needs to be the one to push this type of ubiquitous network in healthcare.  I think he’s right.  No one else in healthcare has the power and reach to really push this forward.  In fact, I argued that this is what ONC should have done with the $36 billion of meaningful use money.  Unfortunately, they took a much more prescriptive approach instead of incentivizing a network of healthcare organizations sharing data where there’s not a natural incentive to do so.  That ship has passed, but they still seem like the only ones who could push widespread adoption.

< + > Blood Labeling Safety When Systems Are Down

The following is a guest article by Jeff Dragoo, Chief Technology Officer at Digi-Trax

5 Things Inpatient IT Teams Should Know

Planned maintenance, cybersecurity incidents, network disruptions, and unexpected outages can interrupt critical healthcare workflows. Business continuity extends to protecting the blood supply network.

Whether it is an emergency or scheduled downtime, blood must keep flowing to where patients need it. Accurate, compliant blood product labeling helps to make that possible. Hospital IT teams have myriad priorities during outages. Like their clinical counterparts, they must triage. Blood bag labeling and tagging systems can keep running on their own if they are designed for stand-alone use. 

A Growing Problem

System disruption is a major risk. Business continuity during IT downtime has become a foremost concern, given the increase in cyberattacks, especially ransomware. Extreme weather events, which can affect systems, are also more common. Meanwhile, healthcare demand does not let up. Women give birth. Shootings occur. Hearts fail. At worst, the crises that impact IT systems are associated with high-casualty disasters created by humans or nature. 

As a result, healthcare organizations, from the point of care to industry associations, are forging emergency preparedness and contingency plans specifically for IT crises. For example, Blood Centers of America (BCA), the nation’s largest blood supply network, has digital darkness protocols for more than 60 independent community blood centers. Technology suppliers are included in these plans.

Is your organization ready? The following are five important considerations.

1. Blood Supply Visibility and Viability

Accurate labeling is crucial for patient safety in care settings where transfusions might be required. The emergency room (ER) might be the first to come to mind, but blood also must be available in labor and delivery suites, operating theaters, intensive care units (ICU), and other departments. Each bag must be compatible with the patient’s blood type. If not, there can be dire outcomes, including death. 

Blood products pass through multiple handoffs before reaching the patient. A common path is from the blood collection center to a hospital blood bank or laboratory. There are many different types of blood products, each with its own standardized identification requirements. Here are five examples: 

• Whole blood
• Packed red blood cells (PRBC)
• Platelets
• Fresh frozen plasma (FFP)
• Cryoprecipitate (cryo)

Every handoff in this supply chain presents an opportunity to preserve — or compromise — important data vital to patient care. Barcode-enabled workflows, standardized labeling practices, and reliable data capture help maintain efficiency, safety, compliance, and traceability throughout the process. 

2. Downtime Impact

As digital darkness procedures evolve, more healthcare organizations are taking a closer look at specialized workflows, including blood labeling and identification. High-profile downtime crises, such as the CrowdStrike outage, have spurred this attention. Errors and lag time in the blood supply network can have a cascading impact on everything from surgical procedure schedules to blood supplies during a disaster.

One example is crossmatching, the final verification before a blood unit is released for transfusion. Crossmatching confirms that the patient’s blood is compatible with the donor blood unit by validating patient identification, ABO/Rh type, antibody considerations, and blood unit tracking information.

If an automated process is unavailable, clinical staff might have to manually prepare blood bag labels or tags, handwriting essential information. That can increase the potential for transcription errors, workflow delays, and inconsistent documentation during a time-sensitive process — all of which pose patient safety risks.

3. Workflow: Processes, Software, Peripherals

A successful downtime strategy has many moving parts. Automated blood labeling solutions often interface with other software, medical devices, and peripherals. This can include electronic health and medical record (EHR-EMR), laboratory information system (LIS), and blood establishment computer (BEC) solutions, labeling middleware, plus barcode label printers, scanners, and mobile devices. This connectivity is desirable for many reasons, including seamless operations and lowered risk for human error. Still, when other systems are down, you want your in-house blood supply processes to function independently, as smoothly as possible.

Clinicians must be able to maintain efficient workflows. Otherwise, they face administrative burdens and manual documentation that take time away from direct patient care. To sustain blood product workflow during downtime, there must be a fully operational labeling ecosystem that includes barcode scanners, mobile computers, label printers, and device management solutions. (See Table 1.)

By planning for the entire workflow — not just label printing — healthcare organizations can improve productivity, support staff during downtime events, and maintain continuity of operations until core systems are back online.

4. Compliance, Traceability and Auditing

Every blood unit requires accurate traceability, from origin to end use. When a blood labeling solution can operate in stand-alone mode, it helps to preserve compliant labeling procedures, documentation, and audit accountability. 

The primary alternative to automated labeling is handwriting. There are four standard sections of a blood bag label, each containing crucial details about the blood product. Manually recording this information can quickly overwhelm staff, slow workflow to a crawl, and add risk for human error. 

Preparedness is not just a matter of printing blood bag labels during digital darkness; it is having barcode scanning functionality. This enables efficiency and accuracy while leaving a digital trail of information that can easily be uploaded to BECS when systems are restored. Otherwise, staff are left to their handwritten notes, which they must manually enter into BECS. 

5. Preparation Builds Resilience

Hospitals have made good progress in establishing digital darkness preparedness plans. As these efforts evolve, blood labeling and identification remain an important part of the conversation.

Here are some best practices for situations when cloud and wireless connections are down and system interfaces are disrupted. 

Safe blood-related workflows depend on much more than technology. It takes cross-functional collaboration between IT, laboratory services, hospital and blood bank leadership, clinical operations, and vendors. This fosters better all-around knowledge of how blood bank and laboratory personnel use these technologies during both routine operations and downtime. 

When downtime occurs, uninterrupted blood product handoffs, labeling, and data verification are mission-critical. With a solid plan in place, IT departments play a crucial role in blood supply safety and continuity of patient care. 

About Jeff Dragoo

Jeff Dragoo is Chief Technology Officer at Digi-Trax LLC, where he has spent 18 years leading the development of labeling and identification systems for blood banks and transfusion services. He serves on ICCBBA’s Americas Technical Advisory Group (ATAG) and Cellular Therapy Coding and Labeling Advisory Group (CTCLAG), contributing to the ISBT 128 standards that govern blood and cellular therapy product identification and safety. His work bridges system engineering and patient-safety practice, with particular focus on ensuring labeling integrity when systems experience downtime or failure.

< + > This Week’s Health IT Jobs – September 16, 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:

• Privacy Analyst, Intermediate – UPMC
• Payer Knowledge Associate – athenahealth
• Director, EHR Applications-Professional Billing – Beth Israel Lahey Health
• Medical Device Cyber Security Program Manager – Sentara Health
• IS Business Application Manager – Nemours Children’s Health
• Patient Service Representative – Abrazo Health
• Director, AI Platform Engineering & DevOps – IQVIA
• Utilization Management Rep I (US) – Elevance Health
• Revenue & Referral Intake Specialist – Legacy Health
• Operations Manager (Senior Health) – One Medical
• Health Plan Quality Administrator – McLaren Health Care
• Program Manager, Oracle Health Support Operations – Oracle
• Compliance & Privacy Specialist – Overlake Medical Center & Clinics
• Health Information Management Analyst I – Parkland Health
• Patient Services Representative Associate – Corewell Health
• Clinical Engineering Cyber Specialist – GodHeir Services
• Assistant Director, Medical Information & Quality Assurance – NYC Health + Hospitals
• Director of Behavioral Health – Midwest Behavioral Health Center
• ROI Medical Records Specialist – MRO
• Associate Director – VNS Health

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.

< + > Modernizing the Front End of Healthcare

The following is a guest article by Thomas Urie, President and COO at FormAssembly

Over the last decade, healthcare has undergone what looks, from the outside, like a significant digital transformation. Patients can easily register themselves online, schedule and manage their own appointments, and access records through their portals. But while the industry has come a long way in a relatively short amount of time, much of that transformation was largely superficial.

In many cases, only certain elements of these systems went digital without ever being connected to one another and without fully taking into account the overall patient experience. The result? Online forms that go nowhere, patients having to re-enter the same information twice, or staff being left to reconcile records that should have synced automatically in the first place.

Much of this is a consequence of how healthcare’s digital transformation has unfolded. The pandemic forced organizations to digitize patient access almost overnight, leading to rapid investments in online scheduling, patient portals, virtual care, and digital registration. According to a GlobalData report, 80% of surveyed healthcare industry professionals stated that the pandemic accelerated their organization’s digitalization process.

Those efforts were both necessary and remarkably successful given the circumstances. But they also prioritized speed over integration. Individual systems were modernized to solve immediate operational challenges, often without fully considering how those systems would be integrated, or the workflows that would need to be automated to create an effective long-term solution.

The result is a patient experience that often appears modern on the surface. However, if it’s not integrated on the back-end, a modern front-end can actually make things worse. A patient may complete registration before an appointment only to answer many of the same questions again at check-in because information does not flow cleanly between systems – none of it is as seamless as it should be.

A survey of more than 1,000 patients found that nearly three-quarters had filled out a duplicate form, and 42% spent six minutes or more recounting their medical history at every appointment because their data wasn’t integrated. Front-office staff feel this frustration too, spending valuable time reconciling records, collecting missing details, and helping patients navigate processes that remain surprisingly manual beneath a digital surface. A separate survey found that 76% of healthcare leaders say their organizations are overwhelmed by administrative workloads, which create backlogs, contribute to burnout, and introduce real operational risk.

The emergence of AI agents presents an opportunity to move beyond simply digitizing existing workflows and begin redesigning them. Rather than asking patients to complete a form that will ultimately go nowhere, an intelligent intake agent could conduct a conversation that adapts in real time, asking follow-up questions when information is incomplete, clarifying ambiguous responses, and collecting relevant clinical information before the visit begins. Instead of replacing staff, these systems have the potential to reduce repetitive administrative work while allowing clinical teams to focus on patient care – an issue of particular importance as the U.S. faces a steep healthcare worker shortage.

Despite the challenges of workforce shortages and administrative burden, healthcare organizations still face expectations to offer a more consumer-friendly patient experience. People have become accustomed to digital interactions in nearly every aspect of their lives, but patient experience remains one of the last major touchpoints, often feeling disconnected from those expectations.

Successfully modernizing the front end of healthcare will require more than adopting AI. Organizations must ensure these systems operate within rigorous governance frameworks that protect patient privacy, comply with HIPAA requirements, and provide transparency into how patient information is collected, processed, and used. Trust will be just as important as technology.

That trust extends well beyond compliance. In a sector like healthcare, accuracy is critical to ensuring proper patient care, a theme that’s even found its way into pop culture. The HBO series The Pitt introduced audiences to the concept of AI scribes in clinical settings. As depicted in the show, these tools are highly accurate, but not infallible. This is important because an inaccurate medical record written by AI can carry serious consequences for both patients and healthcare providers. It’s likely why 70% of surveyed physicians cite accuracy and reliability as their top barriers to AI adoption. Yet, despite that hesitation, nearly all respondents said they’re already using AI in their practice or are actively interested in doing so. With the right implementation, AI has real potential to ease administrative burden and reduce physician workload while improving the patient experience and clinical outcomes.

Perhaps the greatest opportunity lies in accessibility, improving access for the patients who struggle most with today’s intake process. Older adults, patients with limited digital literacy, individuals who speak English as a second language, or someone who simply forgets to mention an important medication because a form never prompted the right follow-up question, all stand to benefit from a more adaptive, conversational experience.

Healthcare’s first wave of digital transformation focused on making patient access digital. The next phase should focus on making it smarter and more integrated, treating the front-end experience as the beginning of the patient journey rather than a separate, disconnected step. Getting that transition right could both reshape the intake process and set a new standard for how the entire care journey begins.

About Thomas Urie

With over 20 years of leadership experience, Thomas Urie has a strong track record in driving growth and operational success across several technology organizations. Today, he serves as President and Chief Operating Officer of FormAssembly, the secure data collection platform built for organizations that manage mission-critical workflows. FormAssembly is trusted by thousands of customers in regulated industries, including healthcare organizations such as CVS Health, Aetna, and UnitedHealth Group. Using FormAssembly, these organizations can collect patient information securely and compliantly, while ensuring accurate, structured data flows seamlessly into EHRs, Salesforce, and other critical systems from the start. To learn more about FormAssembly’s work with healthcare organizations, please visit the FormAssembly website.