Becker’s asked C-suite executives from hospitals and health systems, along with academic medical centers and universities across the U.S. to share their brightest idea they’re bringing to their system in 2026.
The 51 executives featured in this article are all speaking at the Becker’s Healthcare 14th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, from November 2 – 5, 2026 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
To learn more about this event, click here.
If you would like to join as a speaker or a reviewer, contact Mariah Muhammad at mmuhammad@beckershealthcare.com or agendateam@beckershealthcare.com.
For more information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Jessica Cole at jcole@beckershealthcare.com.
As part of an ongoing series, Becker’s is talking to healthcare leaders who will speak at our conference. The following are answers from our speakers at the event.
Question: What is the best new idea you’re bringing to life this year in your organization?
Marlon F. Levy, MD. CEO of VCU Health System (Richmond, Va.); Senior Vice President of VCU Health Sciences: The best new idea we brought to life this year was launching what we call the Center for Team Care.
The consistent feedback of our team members spoke of a glaring lack of availability of primary care services for them and their families. Each year, we would ‘export’ many thousands of primary care visits to other (non VCU Health) systems.
While we know this issue may exist across the country, we were very intentional about correcting this gap. The Center for Team Care provides comprehensive primary care with same-day/next-day visits available and 24/7/365 text support to VCU Health team members and their dependents on our health plan.
Ease and accessibility were our main priorities during its development. Anyone visiting the Center for Team Care pays no co-pays, requires no prior authorizations and no billing, and receives facilitated referrals to specialists within our network.
In their first year, our Center for Team Care team saw a large number of appointments, with exceptional feedback – ‘best primary care I have ever received’ is just one example – and the care team has grown exponentially. We have reached the point where we can accommodate all those who are asking us to. We are proud to be able to offer this essential service to our employees and their families. To be able to do it in a fiscally responsible way within a self-funded health benefits plan is critical. We re-invest in ourselves.
Michael Stern. President and CEO of Tower Health (West Reading, Pa.): One initiative I’m particularly excited about is designed to unlock fresh ideas and thinking from across Tower Health. We created a Shark Tank-style competition that invites employees to bring forward innovations that can improve quality, patient safety, the patient experience, employee engagement and financial performance. It is a way to tap into the expertise of the people closest to the work every day and give them a meaningful voice in shaping our future. What began as a new idea quickly became a catalyst for many others.
One winning proposal came from Rebecca Cofsky, an Infectious Diseases Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at Reading Hospital, who introduced a rapid diagnostic program to speed effective antibiotic therapy. Her idea helped reduce ICU length of stay and lower the cost of care. Just as important, the competition sparked a tremendous number of additional ideas across the organization, many of which we have either already implemented or are in the process of putting into action. That is what makes this initiative so powerful — it creates a culture where innovation can come from anywhere, and I’m excited to see what our teams bring forward this year.
Timothy L. Riddell, MD. Executive Vice President and COO at Ochsner Health (New Orleans): One of the biggest hurdles in healthcare today is access. Patients need timely access to the right care, and health systems need efficient ways to meet that demand. At Ochsner we’re focusing on a more unified approach to supporting our patients through every stage of their care journey, and that includes solutions that make it easier for patients to connect to the care they need. We’re investing in functionalities that support online self-scheduling and delivering a top-notch patient experience in our contact centers through both human and agentic support.
Equally important is our work to streamline and optimize our appointment inventory and capacity management to ensure appointment times are available as patients are searching. We are using tools and technology to create consistency and greater standardization that will ultimately reduce administrative burdens and help physicians to focus on what they do best – care for patients.
Technology is only part of the equation. The real transformation happens when we bring together our best clinical and operational minds to rethink how schedules are managed. Historically, physicians and clinicians have been hesitant to embrace a fully open inventory model across all scheduling channels. But through collaboration, trust-building, and a shared vision for better care and an enhanced patient experience, we’re seeing a shift. Physicians and clinicians are opening up their schedules, and the results are already making a difference in our access, experience, and quality.
Mark G. Moseley, MD. President of USF Tampa General Physicians; Executive Vice President of Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital: We will be focusing on the intersection of trust between our patients and our care teams. Whether it is creating better access to care, democratizing care navigation, or enhancing the patient experience, we are engaging our teams and investing in the people, processes, and technology necessary to better serve our patients and their families. The patient experience, in particular, is an area where we are looking at the concept of ‘social capital’ to enhance trust and to strengthen our relationships. Trust requires consistency in behaviors, otherwise there is an intention gap between what we say we are going to do, what patients observe us doing, and the outcomes we want to achieve. To improve that consistency, we are working on strengthening the bonds of trust in the relationships between our care teams. We believe that by doing so, patients will see our cohesion and unified commitment to their wellbeing, and in turn trust us more deeply with their care. Our desire is to create a virtuous cycle focused on the needs of our patients and highly reliable outcomes that optimize their health and well-being.
Katrina Wojciechowski, EdD. Vice President and Associate COO of Rochester General Hospital, Rochester (N.Y.) Regional Health System: One of the most exciting ideas we’re bringing to life this year is the launch of hospital‑based Innovation Labs — hands‑on, frontline‑driven spaces designed to turn everyday challenges into practical, testable solutions. These labs are intentionally embedded within the hospital environment, giving clinicians, staff, and leaders a structured place to tackle real operational and clinical problems — whether that’s improving workflows, redesigning care processes, or testing small but high‑impact ideas. Each hospital lab is directly connected to a centralized system innovation center, creating a true bidirectional pipeline: frontline insights inform system priorities, while system resources help accelerate and scale local solutions. In this model, innovation becomes operational — not theoretical.
In parallel, we’ve applied this same mindset to throughput. Despite significant community resource constraints, we’ve re‑imagined throughput by shifting the focus from days to minutes and hours, and by asking a different question: What is keeping a patient in a bed right now? That lens has pushed us upstream to address preventable drivers such as hospital‑acquired infections, falls, diagnostic delays, and variation in care processes. As a result, throughput is no longer just about discharge, it’s about reducing harm, improving reliability and creating capacity by improving the care experience at every step.
Together, these efforts represent a broader shift at Rochester Regional Health: empowering teams closest to the work to solve problems, while tightly aligning innovation and operations around what matters most to patients and staff.
Peter D. Banko. President and CEO of Baystate Health (Springfield, Mass.): As a true payvider, we are bringing forward new ideas that soften the inherent conflict between payers, physicians, and hospitals. In that, the best ideas greatly reduce (or eliminate) the friction between members, patients and providers with the health plan. If we brought to life a solution rooted in our integrated systems Core Values of Courage, Respect and Agility, where could we create greater vulnerability, reliability and transparency between payer and provider? We are working through the operational details right now to eliminate prior authorizations and denials for all employed and tightly aligned providers. Stay tuned.
Adrin Mammen. Vice President and Chief of Ambulatory Patient Access at Mount Sinai Health System (New York City): One of the most important changes we are driving this year is shifting how patients get scheduled by moving to more specialty-specific builds in Epic. Historically, too much of scheduling has been tied to selecting an individual provider, which can slow patients down and make it harder to use capacity across the system.
We are moving toward a model where patients are scheduled based on what they need, supported by clearer referral pathways, specialty-specific scheduling logic, and automated referral tickets that guide work to the right teams. A key enabler is what we call “provider terms,” structured clinical keywords that allow us to match patients to the right providers across the network based on condition, not just name. In parallel, we are expanding digital self-scheduling and automated waitlists so we can fill open capacity in real time and reduce delays.
The focus is straightforward: improve access for patients while making better use of the capacity we already have.
Helen Johnson, RN. CEO of Helen Newberry Joy Hospital & Healthcare Center (Mich.): At Helen Newberry Joy Hospital & Healthcare Center we are engaging in expansive relationships and collaboration with our community partners. Healthcare has become so diffuse in our delivery system that it feels a bit like the movie “Every Thing, Every Where, All At Once.” We need to be in alignment with our local education providers to fill the talent pipeline. We need to be partnered with our local emergency response organizations to rethink models such as paramedicine and non-emergency medical transport. Collaboration is necessary with social service organizations to help address gaps in service and social determinants in our communities. All of these and more, while we also keep the efficiency and innovation occurring in our legacy business of hospitals, physician offices, and outpatient services. I am especially excited about pushing the definition of healthcare beyond our traditional ideas of come see us when you are sick. I want our organization to be a lifelong health partner.
Erik Mikaitis, MD. CEO of Cook County Health (Chicago): Upcoming changes to Medicaid will disproportionately impact safety net healthcare providers, including Cook County Health, which delivers 40% of the charity care in the Chicagoland area. To mitigate these impacts, strengthen our resources and workforce, and support our communities, Cook County Health is leaning into strategic partnerships. One example is the cross-sector Medicaid Impact Workgroup convened by Cook County Health, which brings together leaders from healthcare, business, academia, and philanthropy to help individuals navigate Medicaid changes and maintain coverage for which they remain eligible. In parallel, Cook County Health is expanding workforce development efforts through new training programs with City Colleges of Chicago, aimed at growing the local healthcare workforce, creating economic opportunity, and building a sustainable pipeline of talent to reduce reliance on agency staffing. This partnership was recently bolstered by a $5 million grant from the Pritzker Traubert Foundation to launch a new medical assistant training program, an important first step in scaling this workforce strategy in 2026 and beyond. As unprecedented federal cuts to healthcare and social service programs further strain already limited resources, strategic partnerships are more critical than ever to sustain care and support for the communities that rely on us.
Karen Fasano, DNP, RN. Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer, Good Samaritan University Hospital (West Islip, N.Y.); System Vice President of Nursing Patient Experience at Catholic Health, Long Island (N.Y.): We are building a robust safety culture through engagement and empowerment of staff
– We involve frontline workers in safety design, decision-making and problem-solving.
– We provide channels for reporting safety concerns without fear of retaliation.
– We encourage proactive safety conversations: pre-task briefings, toolbox talks, daily huddles.
– We recognize and celebrate safe behaviors and improvement efforts.
Implemented:
Monthly- townhall meetings with the nursing staff- ( days and nights)- “The voice of the employee”
Shared governance committee – development- inclusion of staff in making decisions
“coffee with Karen”- weekly coffee meetings with the CNO
Meeting with all employees who have a patient fall – learning opportunity
Changing the culture to teamwork , and curiosity vs fear and dissemination of practice
Support program for new hires-
Mentor program
Support groups
Buddy program
Assignments- adjust for new nurses
Ultrasound guided IVs
Day in the life for NAs
“Rules of engagement form” – setting expectations for employees upon hire and annually
Celebrate the wins- no matter how small they may be- round daily with little gifts, announcements of great catches, saying thank you.
Kellan Tittle. CFO of People Incorporated Mental Health Services (Eagan, Minn.): The best idea we are rolling out is an AI supported tool designed to reduce administrative burden for clinicians and allow them to focus more on direct client care.
This tool will streamline documentation by generating structured, compliant clinical notes from session inputs, offering real time suggestions to support clinical decision making, and improving workflow integration. It also introduces more advanced capabilities, such as smarter scheduling and predictive insights to help optimize caseloads and ensure clinicians are working at sustainable and effective levels.
We know there will be a learning curve as we look to have all clinicians adopt this model so training and communication will be critical. We feel the pros outweigh the cons and are very excited to learn and refine it as we continue to receive feedback.
Shadi Jarjous, MD. Chief, Hospital Medicine Division and Vice Chair, Operations, Emergency and Hospital Medicine Department at Lehigh Valley Health Network, Jefferson Health (Philadelphia): This year, we are focused on strategically integrating AI capabilities embedded within our electronic medical record to optimize both care delivery and patient experience. One example is the development of AI-assisted discharge instructions designed to reimagine one of the most critical moments in the patient journey, the transition home. Too often viewed as a transactional endpoint, discharge represents an opportunity to enhance clarity, continuity, and patient confidence. By leveraging AI directly within our EMR, we aim to deliver discharge information that is clearer, more consistent, and meaningfully personalized without increasing burden on care teams. This approach reduces unwarranted variation, supports better outcomes, and strengthens transitions of care while aligning patient experience with operational and financial stewardship. More broadly, it reflects a guiding principle that technology should amplify compassion, not replace it. Through AI-assisted discharge, we are not simply improving documentation, we’re aspiring to set a new standard for how healthcare supports patients beyond hospital walls.
Margaret Dimond, PhD. President of UM Health Regional Network (Ann Arbor): The best new idea the University of Michigan Regional Network has been developing is the creation and investment in a long-term innovative strategy for healthcare workforce staffing. Our plan includes engagement with multiple high schools across mid Michigan to begin partnerships starting in freshman year for exposure, and hands-on learning experiences for high school students interested in any aspect of hospital and healthcare operations. The curriculum we created includes immersion activities, and direct training modules. The students will have four years of opportunities to solidify a long-term employment partnership with our health system.
Timothy Layman, DNP, MSN, RN. President and Chief Administrative Officer of St. Mary’s Hospital, Hospital Sisters Health System (Decatur, Ill.): I am focused on creating the future of healthcare today. My vision is to build a smart hospital that seamlessly connects people to complex systems, enabling patients and families to navigate care independently with clarity and confidence. This means designing experiences where advanced technology simplifies access, reduces friction, and anticipates needs without losing the human connection that defines great care. We are intentionally fusing digital innovation with compassionate touch, ensuring that convenience never replaces empathy but instead enhances it. By aligning data, workflows, and people, we can create a more intuitive, responsive healthcare environment. This approach not only improves outcomes and efficiency but also restores a sense of control and trust for those we serve. HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital in Decatur has been in the community for 148 years, and we are positioning ourselves for many more. The future of healthcare isn’t coming — it’s already here, and we are setting the pace.
Jason Foland, MD. President of Studer Family Children’s Hospital (Pensacola, Fla.): Studer Family Children’s Hospital is building a clinically integrated network that aligns providers, facilities and insurance to put patients first. The goal is to deliver care in the most appropriate, cost-effective setting while improving access for families.
Right now, many families use the ER out of convenience because there are limited options available to them, especially after hours. An ER is designed for life-threatening emergencies, not ear infections. When there’s no pediatric urgent care nearby, families have few other choices.
Our network aims to change that. By partnering with FQHCs and developing after-hours pediatric urgent care, we can meet families where they are and get them to the right place for the care they need. When we do that well, patients get faster, more convenient care, and the system works better for everyone.
Mark Sevco. President of Allegheny Health Network (Pittsburgh): One significant change at Allegheny Health Network over the past year has been our deliberate shift to a population health mindset. We are focused on growing responsibly to care for more patients, supported by a new digital transformation roadmap that strengthens our tools, data, and AI capabilities to meet and exceed evolving consumer expectations. This approach has enabled us to meaningfully improve access to care while continuing to elevate quality and patient experience. At the same time, we have maintained strong operating discipline and a focus on total cost of care. Collectively, these efforts have driven a $240 million improvement in operating margin compared to the prior year, while positioning the organization for sustainable, long-term growth.
Angelo Milazzo, MD. Chief Medical Officer of Duke Health Integrated Practice (Durham, N.C.): This year, we have committed to expanding patient access beyond the hours that are, traditionally, convenient for the clinicians and teams providing care within an academic health system. We have, historically, provided the bulk of our service delivery during ‘bankers hours,’ with services outside of those hours typically limited to primary and urgent care. Patients are, increasingly, demanding a broader array of opportunities to engage with our specialty medical, surgical, procedural, and diagnostic offerings.
So, we are developing a broader selection of programs that open early and close late during weekdays, and programs that see patients on Saturdays and Sundays. This has required a reimagining of staffing models, support structures, compensation, and incentives—and a shift in priorities, toward being operationally flexible, and capable of meeting the real needs of patients who are demanding convenience, efficiency, and frictionless satisfaction when interacting with firms in other service sectors.
Caswell Samms. Executive Vice President and CFO of Nemours Children’s Health (Jacksonville, Fla.): This year for Nemours finance is making a comprehensive shift toward optimizing financial operations that strengthen organizational agility. We are evaluating our Enterprise Planning Module to help our clinical operators make informed decisions through data that unifies clinical, operational, and financial data into a single decision environment.
We presented to our board a $250M operational excellence plan that will be implemented over the next several years as we anticipate cost and reimbursement pressures to continue. Our goal is to redirect resources to the areas that drive the greatest value for patients and caregivers.
We are modernizing our capital allocation process to emphasize transparency and speed, ensuring every investment is evaluated not just on ROI, but also on its ability to advance access, quality, and long‑term sustainability. What excites me most is how this work is breaking down silos empowering clinical leaders, finance, and operations to make decisions together with shared facts and a shared purpose. It’s a transformation that is already improving alignment across the organization and positioning us to respond more effectively to the challenges ahead.
Frank Corcoran. CEO of Lane Regional Medical Center (Zachary, La.): The most exciting idea we’re bringing to life at Lane Regional Medical Center in 2026 is a focused effort to expand the specialty services people in our community have long had to travel elsewhere to receive. We’re growing in several key areas, including advanced robotic surgery, women’s services, and mental and behavioral health. Zachary and the surrounding communities have changed a lot in the past decade, and our residents deserve access to high‑quality care close to home. At the same time, we’re committed to keeping the personal, community‑centered feel that defines Lane. What makes this work meaningful is the combination of recruiting the right specialists, investing in technology that truly improves care, and building the infrastructure to support long‑term growth. We’re showing that a district hospital can expand its capabilities without losing its roots. When patients no longer have to leave their own community for exceptional care, we know we’re fulfilling our mission.
Cameron Hernandez, MD. President and COO of Mount Sinai Queens (N.Y.): We are leveraging AI to transform how documentation is completed across our facility. With Microsoft Ambient AI, clinical conversations are captured in real time and converts them into structured documentation, while End of Shift AI compiles and synthesizes all notes from the nurse’s flowsheet into a concise, comprehensive summary for handoff. Together, these tools significantly reduce the time spent on manual documentation and streamline workflows across the shift. Staff have embraced this approach, reporting increased satisfaction as they are able to focus less on charting and more on direct patient care. The central theme of this work is using AI to give time back to our nurses and nurse assistants at the bedside, where their presence has the greatest impact. By reducing administrative burden and cognitive load, we are empowering our teams to have more meaningful patient interactions, improving engagement, and supporting overall staff well-being. Ultimately, this approach enhances both care quality and the patient experience while ensuring accurate and timely documentation.
Angela Handley, BSN. CEO of Clinch Memorial Hospital (Homerville, Ga.): As CEO of a critical access hospital, it often feels like we are constantly working to bring new ideas to life or find creative ways to sustain and strengthen the services we already offer. There is one initiative that is taking precedence over all of the others that we have, and it is deeply personal to me.
Clinch County, where our hospital is located, has never had a pediatrician. NEVER… For generations, families have had to travel at least 45 minutes one way to access pediatric care. Because of that gap, we have been unable to admit patients under the age of 12, and I know firsthand that both well visits and sick care are often delayed due to limited access. Can you imagine the struggle for single parents, or parents who have very restrictive PTO policies to get their children to needed appointments? I can’t imagine being sick and having to spend almost two hours in the car to travel to my pediatrician and then waiting just as long to be seen. After the appointment, one then has to wait at the local pharmacy for a prescription fill, some are delayed due to the late hours. A sick child and their parents may have to spend over 4 hours seeking treatment. This is not sustainable and we have seen the impact … children are not treated as often and as quickly as they should be, many children see care delayed for several days which usually result in an ER visit.
Recruiting providers to a rural community is never easy, and we have faced those challenges for years. Bringing the first pediatric practice to Clinch County and expanding our ability to care for children within our hospital, would be so amazing for me and my team! This is more than a new service line; it is an opportunity to fundamentally change access to care for the children and families we serve.
I would be incredibly proud to know that I played a role in changing the future of healthcare for the children of Clinch County.
Julie Kline. Chief Human Resources Officer of Erie County Medical Center (Buffalo, N.Y.): Applying the attributes of Positive Psychology into our employment practices and interactions (lifelong learning, building relationships, and giving back to others) in a way that is more creative than the typical cliches. It has reduced our turnover and increased our employer brand to the point that we now have waitlists of candidates for our positions.
Albert L. Wright, Jr. President and CEO of West Virginia University Health System (Morgantown): The most important idea we’re bringing to life this year is creating a more connected, systemwide front door to care.
Our goal is to change the health trajectory of the communities we serve, and that starts with making it easier for patients to access the right care, at the right time, and as close to home as possible. To do that, we’re building a Health Track Hub, a centralized referral and navigation center that connects patients to the right provider, ideally before they even leave their primary care visit.
The Hub brings together nurse navigators, standardized workflows, and real-time data from Epic and Tableau to improve coordination and visibility across our health system. By moving from fragmented referral processes to a single, intelligent routing model, we expect to reduce wait times, improve access, increase conversion, and deliver a better overall patient experience.
We’re reinforcing that front door in other important ways. We’re creating a unified system transfer center to better manage patient movement across our 25 hospitals, ensuring patients reach the appropriate level of care as quickly and efficiently as possible. And through Epic, we’ve launched our first fully digital-enabled outpatient clinic, delivering a seamless, digital-first experience for patients. That pilot has performed exceptionally well, and we’re ready to scale that model across the health system.
Kelly Haynie. CEO of Ochsner Medical Center – West Bank Campus (Gretna, La.): It’s not necessarily a new idea but we are leaning into psychological safety, but the problem is that there is a natural tension with accountability. We often overcorrect in one direction, either prioritizing comfort or performance, when both are required.
We are building what we call a high-performance zone, where speaking up is expected and ownership is clear. In our daily operational reviews, leaders surface breakdowns in patient flow or safety, and those issues are assigned, followed up on, and expected to improve quickly.
We are reinforcing this through leader standard work, including purposeful rounding, direct feedback, and consistent follow-through. The goal is simple: create an environment where people can speak candidly and are held to clear expectations, so trust and performance improve together.
This isn’t groundbreaking, but accountability is something we don’t talk enough about when we bring up psych safety.
Ronda Lehman, PharmD. President of Mercy Health Lima (Ohio): We have 3 great initiatives we have launched in the past year, so I will briefly describe each of them. I must begin by saying, all the best ideas come from our leaders and staff who bring these innovations to life, so all the credit goes to them!
The first is Plan of Care rounds. If you trained before electronic health records were widely available, this might not seem particularly innovative, but to the latest generation of caregivers, creating a conscious in person bedside rounding encounter daily as a team has been a game changer for our patient experience. Not only do patients and families feel more confident about their plan of care, but caregivers place less phone calls to each other throughout the day to communicate. We will continue to hardwire this process in the years to come.
The second is related to Women’s Health. Thanks to several generous donors, we opened a personalized Women’s Health Center in March. This center specifically focuses on women who are mid-life and experiencing unique challenges with their health, from hormones, weight gain, thyroid issues to mental health. The community has been overwhelmingly supportive of this new center, and we are excited to see how it changes the dialogue around women’s healthcare in our region.
Finally, is a program designed to address associate burnout and engagement. By incorporating a daily check-in tool, leaders are provided real-time insights into employee engagement and experience. The units that have implemented this technology have demonstrated improved engagement and patient experience, simply by addressing how the associates who care for patients are doing themselves! The realization is that we survey patients constantly, but our most important asset, our associates, are normally only asked annually how they are doing. This quick and easy way to engage allows staff to feel heard throughout their work week.
Kurt Forsyth. President of Delta Community Hospital and Fillmore Community Hospital (Utah), Intermountain Health: Our primary care physicians are using an AI documentation tool for clinic and inpatient hospital charting. This innovative technology tool supports clinicians and keeps physicians in control by recording and transcribing relevant information into the chart based on back-and-forth conversation between the physician and patient. The tool excludes casual banter about pets and sports. In many cases, the physician only needs to spend a few minutes reviewing the chart, making corrections or additions, then signing. This tool is helping save 1-2 hours per day in documentation charting. This free time is used to create more access to patients, and reduce burnout risk.
Another method we are using is to pay traveling specialty physicians for travel time, clinic time, and operating room time. This is considered “innovative” under Rural Health Transformation. Historically, specialists doing outreach to rural or distant locations absorbed their travel costs and risked losing a full clinic day to do some clinic/surgery at much lower volumes. The altruistic, selfless traveling specialist is becoming less available due to financial pressures and increasing travel expenses. We have elected to pay an hourly rate for time at our rural location and a portion of that hourly payment for travel time. We have used this method for general Surgery for the past five years and plan to expand this model to three other specialties in 2026. Depending on the securing of Rural Health Transformation (RHTP) funding to help support this model, we will continue to move this forward so we can have specialty care here locally.
Amber Price. Enterprise Chief Nursing Officer of Sentara (Norfolk, Va.): One of our biggest nursing opportunities in our organization relates to the nursing process associated with medication wasting. We administer more than 16.5 million medications annually in our acute care settings. A component of those—around 500 daily—are high-risk medications such as epidural bags that need to be wasted in front of a witness. That takes a lot of time for nurses. Right now, they spend as much as a quarter of their time doing what we call hunting and gathering—searching for people, supplies, or information. Our new idea is to have virtual nursing cameras placed in every single medication room, so a nurse who needs to waste medication can walk in and request a witness. A virtual nurse will immediately appear to witness and document the waste. This will help ensure timely wasting of high-risk medications and time back to our nurses.
Craig Cheifetz, MD. President of Primary Care Service Line at Inova (Fairfax, Va.): I’m excited to share what we are working on within Inova Primary Care. This year, we’re creating a comprehensive playbook designed to meet our patients where they are, addressing the many complexities of their lives. Instead of focusing solely on adding more physicians or APPs, we’re integrating multiple initiatives to optimize care teams and workflows, developed a real time access dashboard, provide 24/7/365 virtual primary care, non-paneled walk-in clinics, leveraging shared medical visits paired with Abridge AI technology for chronic, stable follow-ups and implementing both APCM and intraservice line consultations. We’re looking closely at practice patterns, such as discharge follow-up orders from acute care and provider cadence within the service line, to pinpoint the ideal frequency that preserves excellent outcomes. At the heart of this effort is our commitment to working as a unified team and system, ensuring consistent, evidence-based, and seamless clinical and experiential care for every primary care patient. It’s about bringing all these elements together to transform the patient experience.
Beth Walker. CEO of Ochsner Medical Center (New Orleans): Ochsner Medical Center, as a tertiary care academic medical center, is fortunate to have a great deal of demand for our services. At the same time, we are trying to balance the dynamic tensions created by many competing priorities for the same resources. Our focus for the year is understanding these tensions, communicating with clarity and transparency, and acknowledging any tradeoffs that have to be made. Recently, we created a patient flow symphony team composed of leaders in patient flow, nursing, emergency Medicine, and hospital medicine. The focus is on the orchestration of strategy and actions, allowing for simultaneous movement, and adapting for scale and complexity. It is helping us to understand each other a little better and where each of our actions can help or hurt the other. And most importantly, we’re making decisions and driving change through our symphony.
Mark Mugiishi, MD. CEO of Hawaii Medical Service Association (Honolulu): Healthcare is becoming harder for too many people to afford and navigate, and in Hawaii, those pressures are felt more deeply. Families across our islands are feeling that strain every day, and they deserve a healthcare system that works better for them.
That’s why one of the most important efforts we’re advancing this year is One Health Hawaii, a shared commitment to improving how care is delivered in our community by integrating health plan financing and strategy with care delivery. As a surgeon and as CEO of HMSA, this work matters because it’s grounded in the simple belief: everyone in Hawaii deserves access to high quality, affordable healthcare that’s close to home, and that happens best when all incentives are aligned.
By bringing together two local nonprofit organizations, HMSA, the state’s largest health plan, and Hawaii Pacific Health, one of the two largest health systems, we’re focused on strengthening care coordination, improving access, and building a more sustainable healthcare system for the people of Hawaii. While our proposal is under federal and state regulatory review, we’re committed to transparency and to keeping our community informed as we work toward a healthier future for generations to come.
Kathy McCollum. President of University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center: This year, University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center (UM BWMC) implemented a “Rapid Assessment Zone” (RAZ) in our emergency department. Maryland has some of the highest ED wait times in the country, and UM BWMC has some of the highest ED volumes in the state. Our metrics were not good in terms of wait times, EMS offload delays and patients who left without being seen. The RAZ program dramatically redesigned our care process. Emergency medicine physicians and APP’s have moved care into the waiting room, in specially designed care pods. So not all patients end up in a bed in the main ED. Many are diagnosed, treated and released right from the waiting room.
As a result, our LWBS rate has dropped significantly and our EMS offload times are now among the lowest in the state. We have also seen improvement in the amount of time it takes from a patient arriving to being admitted. The RAZ program allowed us to efficiently care for the surge of patients we saw during a very busy respiratory illness season this winter. And the feedback from patients has been extremely positive.
Eric J. Price, MBA. CFO of Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital (Manistique, Mich.): One of the best new ideas which we are bringing to life at Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital is related to our Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). Improving access to healthy food is one of the initiatives which we are excited about and look to see improvements in overall health for our community. We have a registered dietitian on our team who is teaching cooking classes in the community. We expect that this will help to improve our community’s knowledge around healthy food choices with the long-term strategic goal of reducing certain chronic diseases. Creating healthy communities begins in the community, not within the hospital. We are working diligently to create health in our communities through outreach programs such as this.
Jay Dennard. President of Gwinnett Hospital Foundation (Lawrenceville, Ga.); System Vice President for Governmental and Community Affairs at Northside Hospital: Our best new idea this year is building a unified Community Health and Impact Platform that tightly links philanthropy, governmental affairs, and community partnerships to measurably improve health in Gwinnett and across the Northside system. In my new role as president of the Gwinnett Hospital System Foundation and System Vice President for Governmental and Community Affairs, I’m bringing together what have traditionally been separate conversations — operations, capital projects, community benefit, policy advocacy, and donor engagement — into one coordinated strategy with shared metrics and a common story. Practically, that means using data on local health needs, population growth, and access gaps to prioritize Foundation investments, then aligning those projects with public funding opportunities, legislative priorities, and community-based partners so every dollar — philanthropic or public — works in tandem.
John M. Fogarty. President of Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital–Needham (Mass.): As is the case in many organizations, the best new idea our hospital is working on as a member of Beth Israel Lahey Health is the leveraging AI to address a number of critical delivery challenges: workforce stabilization and clinician burnout, the need to control rising costs, responding to increasingly complex regulatory/administrative burdens and the risks of cyberattacks and finally addressing health disparities and variation in patient experience caused by fragmented systems and access barriers. We believe the predictive and automation assets AI can bring to the organization hold high potential to resolve many of these longstanding challenges and are now working to establish an appropriate governance structure and integration strategy to optimize this technology.
Cassidy Hoelscher. CEO of The Rehabilitation Institute of Southern Illinois (Shiloh): The most meaningful idea we’re bringing to life this year is a hospitalwide shift toward intentional, transparent communication that strengthens collaboration, trust, and accountability at every level. This includes creating a shared vision statement shaped by both leaders and frontline staff and redesigning how information flows, from standardized Virtual Admission Boards to consistent use of bedside and digital communication tools. We’re also making feedback more visible through SharePoint forms, QR codes, and physical suggestion boards so employees can see that their voices lead to action. Just as importantly, we’re elevating individual value by celebrating employee achievements, certifications, and patient success stories throughout our shared spaces. Together, these efforts move communication from an expectation to a capability, and culture from something we talk about to something we demonstrate daily. The goal is simple but powerful: build alignment, reduce frustration, and create an environment where people feel informed, heard, and proud of the work they do.
Kevin Cook. President of Greater Silicon Valley Market at Sutter Health (Sacramento, Calif.): The most powerful – and most important – thing we’re doing right now is improving access to care for the communities we serve. We’re intentionally adding care centers, expanding specialty services and acute care facilities, and strengthening digital access so patients can more easily connect with care the way that works best for them. At the same time, we’re making sure our infrastructure keeps pace with community growth. These are tangible ways our strategy is coming to life locally. Combined with the strong foundation we already have in place, this approach reflects a long-term commitment to meeting patient needs across the full continuum of care. We believe this is a winning strategy. By being available when patients need us, how they need us, and where they need us – both in person and digitally – we’re ultimately going to serve the community better. That’s where our focus is today.
James Timpe. CEO of Salem Township Hospital (Ill.): For Salem Township Hospital, this year we are building on our vision of having comprehensive outpatient behavioral health services. We currently have an intensive outpatient program targeting our seniors in the area as well as outpatient psychiatry. Now we are adding licensed counseling to provide talk therapy as an adjunct to medication assistance to our behavioral health patients. This will serve adolescents through adults and help us to provide these services under one roof. This is part of our commitment to the growing needs for these services in our surrounding communities and in response to our local primary care base who are looking to keep a growing body of referrals local.
John Ernst. Senior Vice President and COO of Froedtert Hospital (Milwaukee): The idea of a Virtual Provider in Triage, isn’t a new idea, but this is something that we are continuing to expand across our organization at Froedtert ThedaCare. I’m not even sure this is the ‘best’ idea being brought to life this year, but one that has reduced our Left Not Seen and our Length of Stay in three emergency departments within our acute care hospitals across our south region. The VPIT workflow is one of the new ideas we utilize to make us more efficient through digital technology. The VPIT model allows a physician to triage patients remotely. Using a tablet, the physician conducts virtual triage while a paramedic or nurse supports the process at the patient’s bedside. This virtual format enables physicians to triage patients across multiple sites and remain focused without frequent interruptions.
Lisa Carter. President of Southern Region at Ballad Health (Johnson City, Tenn.): Our nursing leaders have come together to create an entirely new experience for our new graduate nurses. We have struggled with turnover during the first one to three years of employment for nurses, so we are completely reimagining the experience of the new nurse. This program focuses on generational needs, improving the overall experience, and ensuring a successful hiring process. For hospital leaders, this focus on a real workforce challenge is both encouraging and exciting. Our hope is that this can expand to other areas of the organization as we continue to combat workforce shortages.
Sarah Ness. President and CEO of PeaceHealth (Vancouver, Wash.): This year, the most impactful idea we’re bringing to life is a comprehensive strategy to expand and modernize patient access across PeaceHealth. We are pleased to share three specific examples of successful access initiatives that have resulted in improved patient care, reduced bottlenecks and increased clinical capacity:
Our AFib fast track clinic model is reducing wait times for hundreds of patients experiencing heart arrhythmia by adding RN navigators, shifting early visits to advanced practice clinicians and streamlining workflows. This approach ensures rhythm specialists see every AFib patient with a full clinical workup already completed, allowing them to focus their time on making informed, timely care decisions and performing timely ablation procedures when needed, per evidence-based guidelines.
We’re accelerating acute and procedural access by improving on‑time surgical starts, increasing primetime utilization and reducing room‑turnover times to their best performance in 18 months, opening up more capacity and opportunities for timely procedures.
At the same time, our strengthened Transfer Center operations tripled our accepted transfers in December alone, ensuring more high‑acuity patients, from throughout our regions, reach us when they need care most.
This work shows how improving access is both essential today and a key building block of our modernized care delivery and service model, ensuring patients receive the right care, at the right time, in the right setting. In short, it is how we continue to deliver on our mission and respond to the needs of our growing Pacific Northwest communities.
Gregory R. Johnson, MD. System Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of UnityPoint Health (West Des Moines, Iowa): At UnityPoint Health, we’re intentionally designing an exceptional patient experience that’s a seamless journey across the care continuum. It’s being built from the patient’s perspective rather than the convenience of individual departments and service lines. We’re using experience mapping and leader rounding to identify friction points and hardwire behaviors that improve the patient experience.
In parallel, we are redefining service lines and aligning clinical practices across our multi-state footprint to enhance access, reliability, and experience. We’re starting with oncology and cardiovascular services because they require consistent standards and coordination across all sites of care and they’re central to how our exceptional care experience can set us apart. Our success in this effort will be evident when patients experience the same high-quality, respectful, coordinated care at our sites throughout the Midwest.
Matthew Broom, MD. Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of BJC Medical Group (St. Louis): There are constantly new products, ideas, and strategies that permeate the healthcare landscape. Our adoption of ambient note technology and AI tools within the electronic health record has continued to create new discussion points across our practice. With the rapid expansion of opportunities, we are renewing our focus on discernment with regards to our people and processes. Taking more time to evaluate historic roadblocks or structures with a refined lens. This has led to new engagements with partners in and outside of our system of care to arrive at how we may continuously evolve towards ‘better’.
Ray Vara Jr. President and CEO of Hawai‘i Pacific Health (Honolulu): Today, many Hawai‘i families are faced with the growing challenge of affordability, which impacts everything from housing and education to critical access to healthcare. We see this across the state, and we know it makes it harder for local families to live and flourish in Hawai‘i. It’s one of the reasons I believe our healthcare system needs a real structural change.
An important concept we hope to advance this year is One Health Hawai‘i, an integrated approach to how clinical services are coordinated, delivered, and financed under the principles of value-based care. By moving beyond the current fragmented system, One Health Hawai‘i creates a more accessible, affordable, and seamless experience that improves outcomes for patients. It reduces administrative burdens and strengthens care coordination, giving our providers more time to focus directly on the individuals they serve. We are also committed to doing this within an open system that includes appropriate safeguards and regulatory oversight to support a competitive and collaborative healthcare environment.
Ultimately, One Health Hawai‘i is about building a more sustainable healthcare ecosystem that delivers high-quality care at a lower cost while reinvesting in critical areas like primary care, access in rural and neighbor island communities, and workforce sustainability.
Nathaniel Beers, MD. President and CEO of Blythedale Children’s Hospital (Valhalla, N.Y.): At Blythedale Children’s Hospital, we are providing care for children with the most complex medical needs. For Many of our children, the required medical equipment to be able to communicate or get around. Our assistive technology team is modifying devices or creating new devices for children every day. We are excited to be working towards safe ways for patients to be able to take this equipment home and for us to share these innovations with other hospitals and patients without incurring unnecessary medical liability.
Chanda Chacon. President and CEO of Children’s Nebraska (Omaha): Virtual Reality in Behavioral Health
In January 2026, we opened our Behavioral Health & Wellness Center, a world-class facility providing the full continuum of pediatric behavioral and mental healthcare services for youth and families. Strong community partnerships have been critical to help us increase access and awareness for the children and families who need us the most.
Using the latest innovative technology through a transformative $5.5 million grant from the James M. Cox Foundation, we are building a clinical curriculum with a focus on virtual reality augmented with artificial intelligence in the behavioral healthcare setting. By developing pathways for education using VR therapy to expand clinical support, our expert team will lead patients to practice emotional regulation and build coping skills and social skills to decrease stress and anxiety.
Wyatt Brieser. CEO of Hammond-Henry Hospital (Geneseo, Ill.): This year, our leadership team is focused on strengthening our organization’s change‑management capabilities. While the concept isn’t new to healthcare, we are intentionally returning to it as a foundational strategy for ensuring long‑term stability within our hospital.
In a rapidly shifting healthcare environment, reducing change fatigue and supporting our teams through periods of transition has become essential. To accomplish this, we are prioritizing clearer communication pathways, earlier and more meaningful integration of frontline staff into decision making, and a renewed commitment from leadership to anticipate challenges so we can align timelines and resources more effectively. Our goal is to create smoother, more successful transitions that empower, not overwhelm our teams.
As part of this broader effort, we are expanding flexible work‑from‑home opportunities for appropriate personnel. Time has always been a precious resource, and eliminating travel for certain roles recaptures meaningful minutes while offering staff improved comfort and balance. This approach not only supports our team but also helps us repurpose on‑site space for patient‑facing and revenue‑producing functions. After developing clear guardrails and policies, we’ve seen early success with this model and plan to expand it in the coming year.
Conor P. Delaney, MD, PhD. President of Cleveland Clinic Florida Market; Executive Vice President of Cleveland Clinic: One of the best new ideas we’re bringing to life this year is how we scale growth more intentionally across the Cleveland Clinic Florida Market, which includes five hospitals and 40 outpatient locations across five counties. Like other health systems in the state, we serve a rapidly growing population, which is driving increased competition and investment throughout the region.
To support this, we’re taking a more coordinated approach to align our services and expand access to care across the communities we serve. One example is Hospital Care at Home, which delivers hospital-level care in the comfort of a patient’s home. Since launching in 2023, it’s helped thousands of patients avoid hospital stays, maintained excellent outcomes with low readmissions, and supported job creation across our communities.
At the heart of it, this is about scaling in a way that is thoughtful, connected and sustainable for our communities. There is tremendous opportunity ahead, and I’m especially enthusiastic about the work we’re doing across the Florida market.
Alison Flynn Gaffney. CEO of Banner University Medicine Tucson (Ariz.): The successful and sustainable evolution of an organization’s culture is not the product of an off-the-shelf program, recipe, how-to guide, or book. Rather, it requires a mindset that each team member—in all roles serving our integrated healthcare system—needs to adopt, and a collective commitment to action. In an environment grounded in trust, mindset and action define how we show up consistently for our teams and the communities we serve.
Neil Machhar. CEO of Greenbrook Medical (Hudson, Fla.): Health systems across the country are facing economic headwinds from the growth of Medicare Advantage and declining reimbursements. As our country continues to age, this problem only increases. With the MA plans also facing rate pressure from CMS, that pressure ultimately impacts their downstream health system partners. At Greenbrook Medical, we’re focused on flipping that script. We’ve partnered with Tampa General Hospital to help them make Medicare Advantage financially sustainable through our high-touch, MA-focused primary care joint venture. We’re opening purpose-built senior care clinics that augment Tampa General’s already high-performing primary care network, creating more primary care access and providing a higher-touch option to those seniors who need it.
Chris A. Klay. President and CEO of Southern Illinois Market at Hospital Sisters Health System (Springfield): As I look at my organization, I am excited about the fact that we are intently focused on increasing overall capacity which ultimately drives improved access for our patients and referring partners. As we work to optimize our overall efficiency, we are keying in on standard initiatives such as patient throughput, first case on time starts, transfer center effectiveness, moving ambulatory volume out of the hospital into outpatient venues, and medical staff recruitment. Yes, these activities absolutely improve organizational capacity but ultimately the goal is to expand the caliber of care we provide with the intent that patients will not have to leave their local community for advanced health care. In sharing this goal, the “best new idea,” is the fact that we have had success partnering with historically competitive health care organizations in expanding our overall organizational competence. This has been achieved through us extending our services into a competing organization as well as inviting external entities to provided needed services on our campuses. Through these ventures, I have found that patients are much more likely receive the services they need close to home and organizationally we are able to provide a more comprehensive health care experience to the communities we serve. So far, this have proven to be a winning strategy.
Michael Weiss, DO. Vice President of Population Health at Rady Children’s Health Orange County (Calif.): With the tremendous focus, across healthcare sectors, on prevention and wellness, our organization is working diligently to align activities around patient/family wellness, associate wellness, and clinician wellness. For patients and families, this includes more activities in the community, where they live and work, focused on education, prevention and wellness. For clinicians, this encompasses work efficiencies and close attention to addressing the daily pain points that lead to higher rates of fatigue. For our associates, this is very much about assuring they feel ‘heard’ and assuring we provide resources to meet their needs. Alignment on these three domains, with broad stakeholder involvement, around an overall culture of wellness is the ultimate goal. We want to get to a place where wellness is not an initiative, but rather, a way of doing business.
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