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HIMSS 2026 Recap and Major Announcements
March 12, 2026
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Together with
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“Being a VC must be the hardest job in the world right now. What do you invest in when nobody has a moat? It used to be technology, but frontier models are narrowing that gap every day. That means trust, brand, and go-to-market matter more than ever.”
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Penguin Ai CEO Fawad Butt
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Digital Health Wire’s been getting its steps in at HIMSS this week. Here’s a first-hand look at some of the biggest announcements live from the exhibit hall, and make sure to stay tuned for a bonus round from the last day of the conference.
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Viva Las HIMSS. The world’s largest healthcare IT conference officially has its swagger back.
The themes at HIMSS might have rhymed with the themes at ViVE, but the conversations were definitely louder – mainly because the exhibit hall was packed with attendees.
Agentic AI has moved from promises to receipts, and measurable ROI is now mandatory for the pitch decks that want to make it to the top of the pile.
It’s also becoming increasingly clear that health systems aren’t looking for quick fixes to old problems. They’re looking for long-term partners to lean on as they navigate a technology landscape that’s shifting faster than ever.
Without further ado, here’s our roundup of the biggest announcements from HIMSS26:
- Abridge rolled out its enterprise-grade AI platform for clinical conversations across WVU Medicine, the largest health system (and private employer) in West Virginia. It turns out that balancing decision support with clinician control resonates just as much at rural systems as it does at the most complex academic medical centers in the country.
- Amazon brought Health AI to the biggest patient acquisition channel in the world: Amazon.com. The new Health AI agent can answer questions, manage prescription renewals, and even book appointments. Better yet, over 200M Prime members can use it to get five direct message care visits with a One Medical provider on the house. Not a bad way to follow up last week’s big news and one of the best interviews at the show.
- athenahealth introduced athenaConnect to deliver a single access point for external health systems, pharmacies, and labs looking to connect with the 170k+ providers using athenaOne. The intelligent interoperability layer brings together integration solutions that bridge the EHR to outside partners as it looks to improve care coordination across local markets.
- Artera showcased its latest AI Agents for patient access workflows, which recently got the nod as Best in KLAS for Patient Communications. The agentic AI wave has helped grow Artera into the trusted access partner at over a thousand provider orgs, and it now supports over 2B patient communications annually.
- Cognosos upgraded its RTLS portfolio with encounter-sensing tags designed to improve compliance and automate data capture during patient interactions. The disposable patient wristbands generate time-stamped data that feeds directly into the EHR without the need for fixed infrastructure.
- Epic previewed its no-code Agent Factory, a visual builder that lets health systems create and deploy custom AI agents directly within their EHR. This could end up tightening Epic’s golden handcuffs on health systems if it catches on, and it also probably means that selling workflow automation agents just got even harder at 40% of U.S. hospitals.
- Google Cloud kicked off a string of industry partnerships with CVS Health, Highmark, Humana, Quest Diagnostics, and Waystar. The collaborations embed Gemini-powered agentic AI into a wide range of operations, with Waystar announcing that it’s already helped prevent 15B denials and CVS launching an entirely new Health100 subsidiary built from the ground up on the foundation.
- Innovaccer unveiled a new AI-powered solution within Flow by Innovaccer that codes 80% of encounters autonomously in seconds, tackling coder shortages, revenue leakage, and rising cost per encounter. We got the full scoop on Flow Capture straight from the top.
- Meditech released its own native AI scribe for physicians and nurses. Welcome to the party, it’s still pretty fun even though everyone else got here last year.
- Microsoft made its presence felt with new Dragon Copilot capabilities that were front-and-center on the showfloor. The biggest enhancements included a huge suite of new AI partner apps spanning from RCM to CDS, and expanded role-based experiences for docs, nurses, and radiologists. More on this one next week.
- PointClickCare launched Discharge Intel, an AI-powered solution designed to give health plans timely clinical intelligence within 24 hours of hospital discharge. Discharge Intel is PCC doing what PCC does best, eliminating manual processes and manilla envelopes from transitions of care.
- RevSpring expanded its agentic AI capabilities for patient billing support, natural language payments, and real-time staff guidance for financial conversations. Not one to rest on its agents’ laurels, RevSpring also unveiled RevSpring Prime to help scale membership-based care models for direct-to-employer and direct-to-member programs.
- Salesforce expanded Agentforce Health with six new AI agents built to act as a 24/7 administrative layer to automate high-stakes tasks that previously stalled treatment. The lineup includes agents for Referrals & Assessments, EHR Writeback, Claims & Coverage, Rural Health, Epidemiology Analysis, and Hospital Operations.
- Snowflake released research revealing that 77% of healthcare orgs are already investing in agentic AI. Two-thirds have adopted, are piloting, or plan to implement new AI agents within the next 12 months, and the vast majority of leadership teams (85%) report that improving data interoperability is a higher priority than it was two years ago.
- Stryker made waves with its new SmartHospital Platform through a newly formed business unit called Smart Care, serving as the connective tissue between all the hardware, software, and people inside of hospitals. It combines ambient sensors, the Engage alarm-filtering engine, Sync Badge devices, and virtual nursing workflows – the culmination of its recent M&A streak that included AI-enabled virtual care company Care.ai and communication platform Vocera.
- Surescripts released its always-excellent Annual Impact Report to unpack the latest trends in e-prescribing and prescription benefits. Key takeaways from this year’s report were that interoperability looks like it finally reached a tipping point, with the Surescripts network clocking 30.5B health data transactions in 2025 – up 12.3% YoY – as well as nearly a billion real-time prescription benefit responses across 973K prescribers.
- Talkdesk debuted a Complex Scheduling tool to help patients access specialty appointments. The specialized capability within Talkdesk’s CXA platform uses agentic AI to reduce delays and optimize physician capacity in contact centers and clinics.
- Verily is bringing Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 8 onto its Pre precision health platform to provide an integrated solution for generating evidence and monitoring real-world populations. The joint offering is geared toward accelerating research for life sciences and government agencies by combining advanced health analytics with consumer-grade wearable data.
- Vital debuted Vital Guard, an AI-driven solution that combs through clinical documentation and radiology reports to flag incidental findings that were uncommunicated, then closes the loop with auditable, asynchronous patient outreach. That means less malpractice exposure, and more downstream revenue.
- VSee introduced “the world’s first autonomous telehealth AI robot” that’s purpose-built for hospitals. It leverages LiDAR to navigate hospital hallways independently for use cases like virtual rounding, supply/medication deliveries, or specialist coverage in the ED.
- Zoom announced a string of healthcare updates to create a more unified “AI-first ecosystem.” Zoom Contact Center is now available in Epic Toolbox to eliminate app switching, Clinical Note added deeper Epic integrations, and Zoom Workplace for Frontline is getting new capabilities for urgent messages and faster handoffs.
Even notoriously slow industries can cover a ton of ground in 12 months, so stay tuned for deeper dives into some of these announcements next week.
Shoutout to all the old friends, new readers, and great sushi hosts that made our trip to Vegas so amazing.
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Clinician-First Copilot for Value-Based Success
Navina’s AI copilot brings clinical intelligence directly to care teams, turning fragmented data into actionable insights that transform value-based workflows from the back office to the point-of-care. Designed for and loved by physicians, Navina’s Best in KLAS AI reduces missed diagnoses while improving quality metrics and risk adjustment accuracy. Discover how practices are leveraging Navina to enhance VBC performance and improve the clinician experience.
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Abridge Named #1 Best in KLAS – Again
KLAS just named Abridge #1 Best in KLAS for Ambient AI for the second year in a row. The recognition was based on direct customer feedback from the nation’s largest and most complex health systems, which gave Abridge the highest overall satisfaction score and A+ ratings across Culture, Loyalty, Relationship, and Value. Discover why Abridge is the market-leading AI platform for clinical conversations.
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- Advanced Machine Intelligence Raises $1B: Digital health’s first nine figure seed round just went to Advanced Machine Intelligence, the AI research lab founded by Meta’s former chief AI scientist Yann LeCun. AMI is putting the bulk of its crisp $1.03B into developing “world models,” which stand to mark a significant leap forward in AI safety for high stakes settings like healthcare. Former Nabla CEO Alex LeBrun will be steering AMI from the helm, and the ambient AI platform that he was instrumental in building will have exclusive first access to the emerging technologies that come out of his new company.
- Solo Agents Don’t Scale: One clinical AI agent should be able to scale. It doesn’t, at least according to a new study in npj Health Systems. Researchers tested leading LLM agents under mixed clinical workloads of 5 to 80 tasks (retrieval, extraction, dosing), with either a single agent handling all the tasks or a multi-agent orchestrator assigning each task to a dedicated worker. The single agents plummeted from 73.1% accuracy with 5 tasks to just 16.6% with 80 tasks, while the multi-agent system topped 90.6% accuracy with 5 tasks and held strong at 65.3% with the largest workloads – despite using 65x fewer tokens in the process. “At health-system scale, architecture matters.”
- Sword Pulse Debut: Sword Health took the lid off Sword Pulse, its grand debut within the cardiometabolic care segment. Sword Pulse is an always-on AI solution built to support hypertension, prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and weight management in a single integrated experience. Does this mean Sword just jumped into the GLP-1 arena? Yes it does. Does this mean an IPO is coming up? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- How People Use Copilot for Health: Microsoft AI’s 2025 Copilot Usage Report wrapped some interesting numbers around how people are using Copilot for health questions. The biggest standout from over half a million conversations was how AI queries differ from traditional search, with 1 in 5 people looking for customized answers for their specific symptoms, test results, or chronic conditions. About 1 in 7 health conversations weren’t even about the user themselves, which was linked to a growing “sandwich generation” that’s caring for both their children and parents while turning to AI for help navigating it all.
- Quantum Acquires CirrusMD: Healthcare navigation company Quantum Health acquired CirrusMD to bring physician-led virtual care to its broader employer navigation offering. CirrusMD connects members with a doctor in under 60 seconds for comprehensive virtual primary care and urgent care services, including annual wellness visits, weight management, women’s health, and behavioral health support. The move arrived after Quantum scooped up data analytics firm Embold Health last year.
- LLM Lands Breakthrough Status: RecovryAI emerged from stealth last week after receiving FDA breakthrough designation for its patient-facing GenAI chatbot that helps with recovery for joint replacements. LLMs push the envelope of the FDA’s traditional validation methods, and the agency has yet to authorize a device that relies on the tech. STAT has a great breakdown of how RecovryAI’s submission (expected in Q3) might offer hints about the FDA’s approach to regulating LLM-based medical devices.
- Papa Plus Launch: Companion care pioneer Papa announced its new Papa Plus program to integrate its in-home visits with robust quality metrics. The new program will see Papa Pals provide their usual member-directed support for health-related social needs, while also supporting plan-directed tasks to advance quality objectives with targeted members in the home. That includes scheduling and accompanying members to annual wellness visits to close gaps in care, providing support after a hospital discharge, or helping members use telehealth to improve access.
- Humana Pushes Into Value-Based Cardiac Care: Humana entered new partnerships with Karoo Health, US Heart and Vascular, and Chamber Cardio as it leans in on value-based cardiac care for Medicare Advantage members. Building on its existing collaboration with CVAUSA’s Novocardia, the program combines around-the-clock support, remote patient monitoring, and coordinated care teams to incentivize evidence-based cardiac care management and improve outcomes for chronic heart conditions across 16 states and D.C.
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Best Practices for Obesity Care in the GLP-1 Era
Healthcare leaders need scalable, evidence-based approaches as obesity care evolves in the GLP-1 era. Withings rounded up its practical best practices from real-time biomarker tracking to value-based data strategies that help care teams improve adherence, tailor interventions, and deliver accountable, high-impact care. Get the best practices here.
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State of Payer Enrollment and Credentialing
Over half of provider orgs are losing revenue due to credentialing delays – with many missing out on over $1M annually. Medallion’s new report unpacks the forces quietly undermining operational and financial performance, and how leaders across the industry are addressing them. Check out the full report to get insights tailored to your role and org type.
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