Advocate Health, a Charlotte, N.C.-based health system, is positioning technology partnerships at the center of its growth strategy, CEO Eugene Woods wrote in an Oct. 13 Harvard Business Review article.
The nonprofit, formed three years ago through the merger of two major regional systems, now operates 69 hospitals and about 1,000 care sites across the Midwest and Southeast. Mr. Woods said the organization’s scale allows it to serve as “a living laboratory” for testing new models of care supported by AI, medtech collaboration and academic research.
In the article, he cited several examples of how Advocate Health is incorporating AI into its clinical and operational infrastructure.
“We’ve embraced AI not as a hyped-up trend but as a strategic imperative,” Mr. Woods wrote.
The health system uses Microsoft’s Dragon Ambient eXperience Copilot to automatically generate clinical documentation from physician-patient conversations — a tool that Mr. Woods said can save physicians up to an hour per day. Nurses are also helping to test a similar documentation product from Microsoft, he said.
The health system has also partnered with imaging firm Aidoc to apply AI in radiology, cutting the time required to identify brain bleeds from roughly 25 minutes to less than three, according to Mr. Woods. Another collaboration with Microsoft and startup Artisight focuses on developing an AI-enabled “hospital room of the future” that combines ambient sensors, smart cameras and telehealth. Mr. Woods said the system has already been used to detect seizure-like movements before a patient falls.
Beyond inpatient care, Mr. Woods wrote that Advocate is using AI to extend specialist access to rural areas through virtual support services, reducing disparities in care availability across its footprint.
Advocate’s broader innovation agenda includes The Pearl, a new Charlotte-based innovation district that opened in mid-2025. The project brings together the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, global surgical training center IRCAD and medtech firms such as Siemens, Stryker and Medtronic. Mr. Woods described the district as a hub for cross-disciplinary collaboration between clinicians, engineers and researchers developing new tools in robotics, AI and minimally invasive surgery.
The system is also creating the Advocate Health National Center for Clinical Trials, which Mr. Woods said will be the country’s largest provider-based clinical research platform. The center is intended to help partners use AI to identify eligible patients and accelerate the pace of testing for new drugs, devices and digital therapies.
Mr. Woods wrote that Advocate’s goal is to move beyond traditional vendor relationships and treat external partners as co-developers.
“Too many companies want to sell their latest products and walk away,” he wrote. “But, given our scale and the life-altering nature of our work, we partner with those willing to design, iterate and build with us.”
According to Mr. Woods, the health system’s focus on technology and collaboration reflects a larger effort to challenge conventional models of care delivery and use data and scale to advance innovation more rapidly.
