Ahead of KLAS’ Digital Health Investment Symposium (DHIS), I connected with thought leaders from our sponsoring organizations:
- Mark Wise of TripleTree, a leading investment bank focused on healthcare
- Doug Greenberg of Korn Ferry, a global organizational and executive search firm
- Daniel Gottlieb and James Cannatti of McDermott Will & Schulte, an international law firm with deep expertise in healthcare law.
We discussed the most pressing challenges and promising opportunities in healthcare IT today, including AI adoption, cloud migration, cybersecurity, and more. Their responses revealed how organizations can navigate this pivotal moment in the industry.
What makes this moment particularly exciting—or challenging—for organizations across the healthcare ecosystem?
Mark:
Several key areas are driving excitement across the healthcare ecosystem including the opportunity for improvement, recognition for efficiency, evolution of technology, and ever-growing attention to more sophisticated and integrated solutions. We’re seeing an amplified desire by operators to find next generation solutions that have the capacity to grow and change, ultimately leading to better health outcomes. Concurrently, the impact of healthcare-related headlines is becoming more frequent, creating uncertainty and, therefore, challenges. The market continues to be hampered by significant reimbursement pressure, pushing stakeholders to focus on cost-effective solutions. It has also spurred a constant re-examination of the right-side of care for communities. Ultimately, the lack of transparency and clarity continues to have a negative impact on the healthcare ecosystem.
Doug:
I’ve been in the industry for over 20 years, and it’s always been both exciting and challenging. Right now, we’re seeing a unique convergence of economic, technological, regulatory, and consumer-driven pressures. Financial strain and shrinking margins are pushing providers to transform. Payers face policy uncertainty and pushback on premiums, but they’re also seeing widespread tech acceleration. Meanwhile, care is shifting beyond hospital walls, and cybersecurity and data privacy remain major concerns. This may not be a make-or-break moment for healthcare, but it’s one we’ll look back on as critical to the go-forward success of the sector.
Daniel & James:
From a regulatory perspective, we expect the HHS Office of Inspector General to begin enforcement of the information blocking prohibition against certified health IT developers this year or early 2026. While the Trump administration has a general de-regulatory approach, it has continued to enforce the HIPAA privacy and security rules. The original information blocking proposed rule was also drafted and released during the first Trump administration.
Additionally, there are a growing number of information blocking cases brought by data analytics companies and other data requestors against EHR companies based on state law claims, like unfair competition and tortious interference with business relations. Some requestors have successfully secured preliminary injunctions against what they claim are information blocking practices that interfere with their access to data and competition in the marketplace. For example, a key case this year involved Real Time Medical Systems, where the US Court of Appeals upheld an injunction requiring PointClickCare to remove restrictions on Real Time’s access to EHR data. Real Time sought access to the data to provide data analytics services to skilled nursing facilities and alleged unfair competition in the form of information blocking.
Where do you see the greatest potential for AI to drive real-world impact in healthcare today? What areas are still being overhyped?
Mark:
Healthcare is rapidly evolving to embrace and integrate AI in a number of aspects of the healthcare ecosystem. Notably, we’re seeing measurable momentum in the revenue cycle, clinical data, clinical decision support and provider operations areas. AI’s ability to improve accuracy and efficiency, starting in the doctor’s office and beyond, has already shown the ability to positively impact accuracy and cost, setting the stage for broad, meaningful change in some of the most complex parts of the healthcare system.
The recent acceleration of AI in the healthcare conversation has come with the sentiment that AI will somehow disrupt all human connection—this is overhyped. We know that we will always need people and that AI is becoming an enabler of quality care by driving efficiency, accuracy, and decision support across many aspects of the healthcare experience.
Doug:
I don’t think anything is overhyped right now. AI is going to impact healthcare just as it is transforming every other sector of society. While we’re still in the early stages for healthcare, we’re already seeing real wins, especially in areas like radiology, pathology, and dermatology where AI is demonstrating precision in detecting tumors and fractures.
AI is also improving early disease detection and clinical decision support by helping physicians analyze patient data and recommend treatment plans. We’re also starting to see a reduction in manual labor and meaningful productivity gains in areas like workflow optimization, revenue cycle management, and billing documentation.
That said, we still have a long way to go, especially with chatbot use cases, where the human touch from physicians and clinicians remains essential. That area may take more time, but AI is going to impact every area. Adoption is accelerating quickly. Organizations that invest in the right governance structures around AI will clearly be the winners.
As more healthcare systems move to the cloud, where do you see the most meaningful benefits emerging—and what challenges still need to be addressed?
Mark:
As healthcare systems embrace the cloud, we’re seeing a modern, more integrated healthcare ecosystem emerge. Notably, cloud-based organizations have gained speed and efficiency, enhanced analytics, increased data accessibility, and an exponential ability to search and manage large sets of data. This move doesn’t come without its challenges. Companies are still learning and improving the objective, or unstructured, parts of being a part of a cloud-based platform. Ultimately, cloud migration will help enable a more robust, integrated healthcare environment.
Doug:
All healthcare organizations should be moving to the cloud. While the transition must be approached carefully, it’s a journey that everyone should be on. The most immediate benefit is the reduction in capital expenditures, which supports broader financial transformation. Cloud adoption minimizes the need for on-premises infrastructure and IT teams, while enabling flexible scalability and access to patient data across multiple locations.
The cloud also supports remote work, telemedicine, and collaborative care delivery. As healthcare increasingly moves beyond the hospital walls, the cloud will become a vital tool for processing large volumes of data and supporting care wherever it’s needed.
But moving to the cloud isn’t without its complexities. Security and privacy are critical concerns, especially given today’s stringent regulatory environment. Organizations need to manage cloud environments carefully—with strong governance, thoughtful planning, and a clear focus on compliance and risk mitigation. When done right, the cloud is a clear win-win.
What are you seeing on cybersecurity energy in healthcare versus actual spend and budget? Are healthcare organizations adequately secure today?
Mark:
The headlines continue to highlight the increasing frequency and impact of healthcare related cyber-attacks, leading to more visible disruption across the healthcare ecosystem. While organizations continue to evaluate their security infrastructure and response plans, we’re seeing this become a meaningful part of their budgets and an ongoing area for increased scrutiny.
Doug:
There’s a lot of energy for cybersecurity at the board level for most organizations. Larger health systems are improving, but funding is still slightly inefficient. Still, the amount of work and investment that’s going on is significant across healthcare today. If you look at all the statistics and data, the biggest risk area overall is for smaller and rural hospitals.
Daniel & James:
Based on the volume of ransomware litigation, it would appear that many organizations are not adequately secure. This appears to be the case, in particular, among smaller and medium-sized physician practices that do not have sophisticated information security resources in-house or from a managed IT service provider.
Where is revenue cycle management (RCM) today, where is it headed, and what aspects of that direction might be cause for concern?
Mark:
With continued complexity, labor challenges and provider margin pressure overarching RCM themes, larger end-to-end players, along with more scaled and specialized platforms, are emerging to address specific problems with measurable degrees of success. Organizations are moving to manage labor and cost challenges by outsourcing their labor and technology solutions, resulting in more efficiency and better outcomes. Additionally, AI is a marked focus for RCM, focused on integrating automation and intelligence to deal with highly complex processes. We continue to see RCM as a prime area for investment—without investing capital in the right way, companies may be subject to risk.
Doug:
The overall advances in technology and AI capabilities make a strong argument for stronger efficiency in the revenue cycle. There’s increased openness to outsourcing and offshoring, and we’re seeing meaningful workflow redesign.
However, the front end could still use some optimizations. As denial rates continue to decline much more automation can happen. And billing collections can also be optimized. We’re a lot further along than we were, and overall, it’s an exciting time for those reasons.
What’s one insight or trend you’re most excited to explore or discuss at this year’s symposium?
Mark:
One of the most prevalent themes across the healthcare ecosystem is AI and its ability to gain traction in the commercial space. Top of mind for this year’s event is exploring the strategic lens organizations are using to build and manage infrastructure to support more holistic applications of AI versus solutions that operate in isolated environments.
Daniel & James:
One of the most important trends is the growth of private information blocking litigation against EHR companies. These are cases brought under state laws, not the Cures Act, by third-party developers and service providers. Healthcare IT companies seeking to avoid state law claims should consider the following steps:
- Maintain a log or other documentation of attempts to negotiate an agreement with requestors, particularly requestors seeking bespoke solutions.
- Maintain documentation of the technical requirements and anticipated resources needed for any requested solution.
- Implement consistent, repeatable procedures and communications regardless of whether a requestor is a competitor for any product or service or a preferred business partner.
- Conduct any vendor security assessments for bespoke data access solutions in accordance with a security policy that is tailored to documented security risks and consistent with the information blocking regulations’ security exception.
- Document any system performance issues caused by third-party applications to support assertions of the health IT performance exception.
Thanks to our sponsors for taking the time to respond to our questions! For further reading, you can check out this blog on what to expect during DHIS.
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