SALT LAKE CITY AND LOS ANGELES – Feb. 23, 2026 – The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and KLAS Research announced today that Ambience Healthcare won the second annual Trailblazer Award for their AI-powered ambient platform. Adam Gale, CEO of KLAS, and Russ Branzell, President and CEO of CHIME, presented the award at a ceremony today at ViVE 2026.
The Trailblazer Award recognizes a vendor that represents the highest level of innovation and impact in healthcare, as determined by KLAS and CHIME. Recipients are selected based on exceptional KLAS performance scores, meaningful client feedback, and measurable contributions to industry progress. To be eligible, companies must be fully rated by KLAS for the first time in a Best in KLAS report. CHIME leaders then evaluate qualifying candidates using market analysis and validation from health system leaders. The selected winner must demonstrate outstanding leadership and transformative innovation that advances healthcare. Ambience Healthcare earned this distinction by achieving a high KLAS score, delivering strong measurable impact, emerging as a newly founded company, and successfully serving large, complex health systems.
The Ambience clinical platform automatically generates clinical documentation and associated diagnostic and billing codes directly in the provider’s natural workflow. By eliminating manual note taking and enhancing coding accuracy, Ambience can help providers realize substantial returns, including measurable financial gains and reduced clinician burnout.
“Ambience Healthcare is helping doctors feel like doctors again,” said Gale. “By eliminating repetitive administrative tasks, Ambience empowers clinicians to focus on the uniquely human aspects of their roles: problem-solving, critical thinking and empathy for their patients. The result is improved care and clinician satisfaction.”
“Our industry is on the pinnacle of change,” said Branzell. “This award recognizes Ambience’s commitment to delivering innovation and measurable impact.”
KLAS and CHIME also recognized the 2026 Best in KLAS Overall winners and the Most Improved winners at today’s ceremony at ViVE 2026. 2026 Best in KLAS Overall winners include Epic for Overall Health System Suite, athenahealth for Overall Independent Physician Practice Suite, Chartis for Overall IT Services Firm, Optimum Healthcare IT for Overall Implementation Services Firm and Impact Advisors for Overall Healthcare Management Consulting Firm. Best in KLAS Most Improved award winners include TeleVox for Most Improved Software Products, Greenway Health for Most Improved Physician Practice Product and PwC for Most Improved Services Solution.
About CHIME
CHIME is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs), chief innovation officers (CIOs), chief digital officers (CDOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 5,000 individual members in 58 countries and two US territories and over 180 CHIME Foundation healthcare IT business and professional service firm members, CHIME and their three associations provide a highly interactive, trusted environment, enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate, exchange best practices, address professional development needs, and advocate for the effective use of information management to improve the health and care in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit chimecentral.org.
About KLAS
KLAS is a research and insights firm on a global mission to improve healthcare delivery by amplifying the voice of providers and payers. Working with thousands of healthcare professionals and clinicians, KLAS gathers data and insights on software, services, and medical equipment to deliver timely reports, trends, and statistical overviews. The research directly represents the provider and payer voice and acts as a catalyst for improving vendor performance. Follow KLAS on X and LinkedIn. Learn more at klasresearch.com.
Contacts
For CHIME:
Calli Dretke
Executive Vice President & Chief Digital and Marketing Officer
CHIME
936-581-0197
cdretke@dhindights.org
For KLAS:
Joshua Schneck
President
Snow Communications
612-709-8500
josh@snowcommunications.com