Health technology is advancing at a staggering rate. In a few short years, the industry has gone from embracing telehealth to using wearables and virtual reality to incorporating AI in healthcare.
The rapid pace of innovation will require healthcare leaders to remain agile as existing technologies evolve and new tools emerge.
"I think you go off on the ride, and I think if you are a mature leader, you know you have to be nimble, you have to be open…try not to look too far ahead but really be ready and adapt in the near future," said Gretchen Brown, chief nursing information officer at Stanford Medicine, during a panel at HIMSS25 in Las Vegas.
However, agility does not mean giving into the hype cycle and implementing technology based on the buzz it generates. HIMSS25 underscored the urgent need for strategic decisions around technology. Walking through the exhibit hall was an overwhelming experience, with technology vendors pulling out all the stops to impress the healthcare customer base.
Among the abundance of tools on display, some captured the attention of healthcare leaders more than others.
Agentic AI
With its growing dominion over society at large, conversations about healthcare innovations inevitably circle back to AI and its myriad promises. HIMSS25 was no different, with a wide array of sessions dedicated to generative AI, ambient listening and AI-powered risk prediction. However, one type of AI proved the most popular in and outside session rooms: agentic AI.
In the simplest terms, agentic AI refers to AI systems that can take action and make decisions autonomously without direct human intervention.
In theory, these tools could revolutionize healthcare workflow management. AI agents could take on administrative tasks, freeing clinicians to focus on patient care without transferring that administrative burden to other staff members.
"The movement to agentic AI is going to create more value than what we have seen in the past because -- to give you an example, you have AI that identifies a whole bunch of prompts, and you just send it over to individuals to take care of, all you've done is add more to their work queue," said David Rhew, M.D., global chief medical officer and vice president of healthcare at Microsoft in an interview, which announced the launch of its new AI assistant for clinical workflow at the conference. "And in all likelihood, things may not get done in a timely manner. We care about the outcomes. That means if there are tasks that could be automated and agentic AI can perform that, that's where the industry is going; that's what people want."
We care about the outcomes. That means if there are tasks that could be automated and agentic AI can perform that, that's where the industry is going; that's what people want.
David Rhew, M.D.Global chief medical officer and vice president of healthcare, Microsoft
Aashima Gupta, global director of healthcare strategy and solutions, echoed Rhew, stating that "agentic AI is a leap forward." However, she noted that not all administrative tasks and workflows will be better served by agentic AI.
"Not everything [will require] genAI, not everything [will require] agentic AI," she said in an interview.
For example, if you are trying to complete a straightforward task like writing an appeal letter, genAI's request-and-response capabilities will likely suffice. On the other hand, agentic AI could improve operational efficiency.
For instance, AI agents could help reduce colonoscopy cancellations by automating patient outreach before appointments to remind patients of the preparation process, as Hannah Koczka, vice president of ventures and innovation at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, described on the exhibit floor at HIMSS25.
In addition to finding the correct use cases for agentic AI, the healthcare industry also needs to take a closer look at the required guardrails for this emerging technology, Rebecca Mishuris, chief medical information officer and vice president of digital at Mass General Brigham, cautioned.
"We don't quite understand it; we don't know how to monitor it; what are we as a society comfortable with allowing AI to just do on its own versus having a human in the loop?" she said in an interview. "Clearly, there is a role for it, but it is pretty narrow right now, I would say, in healthcare."
Smart hospital rooms
Advancements in remote care technologies are ushering in a new age of hospital design centered on 'smart' patient rooms.
Embedding technology into patient rooms was central to Paramus, New Jersey-based Valley Health System's new campus design. At a HIMSS25 session, health system leaders described the new patient rooms, which now include a 75-inch TV that enables synchronous telehealth visits with care teams in addition to medical information, education, entertainment and relaxation resources.
Additionally, the health system has implemented AI-driven fall prevention solutions in all med-surg rooms, along with digital door signs and in-room clinical PCs to support bedside shift change reporting.
A critical aspect of designing and implementing the new 'smart' rooms was allowing staff to test the technology before purchasing it.
"We created a whole test lab, so we could put all of the technology we were thinking about implementing in one place to not just test them but to run continuous simulations and adjust workflow," said Andrea Valtos, assistant vice president of information systems, Valley Health System, during a session. "So, we actually had staff come over to the test lab, try out the technology, talk about how that interacted with their regular operations. And we tweaked [the tech] multiple times because of that."
VR for mental healthcare
VR technology shows significant promise in enhancing mental healthcare delivery as it can create realistic environments and simulate scenarios for exposure therapy.
Our memories are not just verbal…tone of voice, textures, colors, smells, all of that gets lost in a verbal therapy session alone. We think the processing is, in layman's terms, more complete [with VR]. Trauma memories, in particular, are very rich sensory memories.
Jo Ann Difede, Ph.D.Psychology professor and director of the Virtual Reality Lab and Program for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress,Weill Cornell Medical College
During an interview at HIMSS25, Jo Ann Difede, Ph.D., a psychology professor and director of the Virtual Reality Lab and Program for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress at Weill Cornell Medical College, described a potential VR treatment for a patient who has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) stemming from the 9/11 attacks.
In this treatment, a patient would put on a VR headset and be immersed in a 3D world that looked and sounded like the World Trade Center. Slowly, the therapist would add other stimuli to take the patient back to the moment that created the trauma they are still experiencing.
"Our memories are not just verbal…tone of voice, textures, colors, smells, all of that gets lost in a verbal therapy session alone," Difede said. "We think the processing is, in layman's terms, more complete [with VR]. Trauma memories, in particular, are very rich sensory memories."
Further, most patients who use VR like it and are likely to continue using it, which offers a major benefit for PTSD therapy where the dropout rate is high, she added.
The sheer volume of technology available today and the pressure to remain competitive may convince some healthcare leaders to invest first and ask questions later. But, according to Mike Mosquito, president and CEO of emerging technologies advisory HealthNovation, leaders must be more thoughtful about their technology decisions. They must first assess whether their organizations have the technological capabilities and skillset to deploy the latest tools.
"Are you mature enough to adapt and adopt these technologies?" he said at a HIMSS panel. "[You can't just] say we want to buy [a tool] because the hospital across the street is."
And above all else, healthcare organizations must remain laser-focused on their patients.
"At the end of the day, all of us here are here because we are taking care of a patient," said Khan Siddiqui, MD, co-founder, CEO and chairman of the board of healthcare AI company HOPPR, during a panel. "So that has to be the top of the pyramid where everybody's focus is -- how you make a decision, how you think of technology, how will it impact that patient and the community of those patients, the patient population you are trying to address."
Anuja Vaidya has covered the healthcare industry since 2012. She currently covers the virtual healthcare landscape, including telehealth, remote patient monitoring and digital therapeutics.
