1) ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)

• Epic’s UGM previewed an expanded AI roadmap:

  • AI Charting is ambient documentation built directly into Epic and is powered by Microsoft Nuance Dragon Medical One and Epic's Signal workflow data. Early pilots indicate a 50% to 60% reduction in pajama time.

    
    

  • Epic signaled its intent to own the underlying AI platform layer with a Cosmos‑based model called Cosmos Medical Event Transformer (CoMET). CoMet is one of the largest clinically grounded AI models in healthcare trained on 16 billion clinical encounters covering 300M patients.

    
    

  • Epic also announced three assistants—Art (clinician), Penny (RCM), Emmie (patient).

    • Art supports providers with in-workflow summaries, care plan suggestions, and draft orders.

    • Penny focuses on coding support, denial prevention, and drafting appeals letters.

    • Emmie serves as the patient's conversational navigator

      
      

2) PATIENT EXPERIENCE AND ENGAGEMENT

• Hospitals are increasing their of EHR‑integrated self‑scheduling, intake and messaging to cut access friction and tie to patient financial engagement.

3) HEALTHTECH ADOPTION

• Virtual‑first/home‑based care momentum: commentary this week underscores RPM and smart‑home integrations for adherence and aging‑in‑place.

• Payers & Providers: Expect RPM enrollment growth among MA/high‑risk seniors; emphasis on device‑agnostic data flows and engagement nudges to lift retention and outcomes.

4) EHR OPTIMIZATION AND INTEGRATION

• Oracle Health customers, now three years post‑acquisition, praise Oracle for improved code quality and a delivered Clinical AI Agent, but want more form Oracle with partnership and roadmap clarity. 

  
  

• CIOs/CMIOs have near‑term focus on AI‑assisted workflows and upgrade paths; watch for switching risk where optimization drags on productivity or satisfaction.

5) HOSPITAL CYBERSECURITY

• HHS OCR continues to emphasize enforcement readiness around ransomware and unauthorized access, reinforcing the need for:

  • Segmentation,

  • Immutable backups

  • Downtime drills.

• Boards & CISOs should expect tighter timetables for microsegmentation, EHR downtime runbooks, and third‑party risk reviews tied to PHI exposure.

6) RCM MODERNIZATION AND AUTOMATION

• Epic introduced “Penny” for RCM (coding & denials appeals) during UGM—an EHR‑native step toward autonomous RCM flows.

  
  

• Revenue Integrity continues to be a high priority: Expect pilots in pre‑auth, coverage discovery, and denials; There will also be closer coupling of ambient notes, coding, and claims.

7) HOSPITAL FINANCIAL HEALTH

• According to Fitch Rating, credit ratings are appear to be stable for multi‑hospital systems. While smaller/rural facilities remain pressured.

• Capital access remains tighter for standalone/rural orgs; continued cost containment, outpatient shift, and payer‑mix management remain core levers.

8) ERP MODERNIZATION AND WORKFORCE PLANNING

• Health systems' near‑term priorities are scheduling, time & attendance, labor analytics.

• Hosptials will select targeted rollouts that integrate with EHR acuity & staffing signals; looking to tie workforce analytics to overtime, float pools and virtual nursing models.

  
  

9) RURAL HOSPITAL

• Rural hospitals continue to experience persisting headwinds (volume, payer mix, staffing) despite stabilization in larger systems.