HLTH 2025 came with a “Heroes and Legends” theme, an avalanche of AI announcements, and a decidedly quieter tone amid warning signs. Over 12,000 attendees, 400+ speakers and 900+ exhibitors gathered to discuss latest learnings on integrating advanced technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, into healthcare systems to enhance patient care and operational efficiency.
The Ascent Strategy Group team facilitated announcements and partnerships as trends and takeaways from earth's largest gathering of healthcare innovators included:
🔝 Validation for AI is a focal point as adoption of technology that lacks standard reporting guidelines ramps up considerably. The American Heart Association launched an AI Assessment lab with Dandelion Health to validate predictive AI for cardiovascular conditions.
🔝 Health systems are deploying AI more to support patient care. Houston Methodist's “smart hospital” leverages wearables for patient monitoring and an AI-backed care traffic control center that helps cue and direct care, flags data for clinicians, and helps move deteriorating patients through care settings.
🔝 Ambient AI is a big hit. AI tools that summarize physician conversations with patients and enter them in the EHR is expanding for care teams. Microsoft the capabilities of Dragon Copilot with the first commercially available ambient AI experience created for nursing workflows.
Warning signs for healthcare were discussed on every HLTH stage and brought a subdued, sober tone to the gathering:
🚨 The ongoing government shutdown has disrupted telehealth and hospital-at-home programs and added to chronic uncertainty from tariffs, research funding cuts, and turnover at HHS and the FDA. Healthcare leaders are seeking stability in federal governance.
🚨 The expiration of tax credits to help Americans buy insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act was a topic of concern. If they lapse at the end of this year, premiums will skyrocket for millions of Americans and many will no longer be able to afford coverage.
🚨 More than 10 million people are projected to lose Medicaid coverage from passage of the OBBB. Those Medicaid cuts will devastate hospitals in rural and underserved areas, some of which are already laying off thousands of employees as they salvage resources in preparation for the impact.
Overall, the need for change in healthcare is undeniable and transformation is underway, yet the pace of change will be slower than the surging needs and vast disparities. Cleveland Clinic's president and CEO captured a key theme of this HLTH when he said that healthcare isn’t the place to “move fast and break things.”
