From AI-powered scribes and predictive analytics to cellular therapy breakthroughs and hospital redesigns, leaders from Fortune’s most innovative health systems share the transformative changes improving care delivery and reducing clinician burden.
The leaders featured in this article are from hospitals and health systems that recently made Fortune’s 2025 list of America’s Most Innovative Companies.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: What is the most transformative innovation your organization has implemented recently, and how has it improved patient care, operational efficiency or healthcare outcomes?
Aileen Helsel, PhD. Director of Innovation at Carilion Clinic (Roanoke, Va.): More than any single invention, Carilion’s growing culture of innovation inspires our healthcare providers to identify and solve the real challenges they face delivering care.
What sets us apart and fuels our ability to accelerate innovation is the seamless collaboration between Carilion Clinic Innovation and our human factors team — working side by side within a world-class simulation center. This enables us to rapidly prototype, test and refine new medical devices in a high-fidelity, low-risk environment, ensuring optimal design and usability.
Alisa Gaskell, PhD. Chief Genomics Officer at Children’s Hospital Colorado (Aurora): Children’s Hospital Colorado Precision Medicine Institute is proud to have recently launched its in-house whole-genome sequencing lab, which also transforms the way genomic results are accessed and integrated into patient care.
This lab is revolutionizing genetic testing by delivering faster results, seamlessly integrating data into patients’ electronic health records, and allowing families to initiate tests conveniently from home
Ashok Kurian. Assistant Vice President of Data and AI, Innovation at Texas Children’s Hospital (Houston): Texas Children’s has made remarkable strides in improving clinician efficiency and patient care. One of our most impactful programs is the implementation of an ambient scribe program tailored for high-impact physicians. This initiative has significantly increased time savings, allowing doctors to devote more attention to patients. It has also boosted same-day note closure, streamlining administrative tasks and enhancing efficiency. These improvements have helped reduce clinician burnout and support exceptional patient care.
We’ve also developed an advanced image recognition bone age prediction model using machine learning. This technology has reduced diagnostic time for radiologists, improving both speed and accuracy — another example of how we’re advancing medical technology to enhance patient care and outcomes.
Jim Venturella. CIO at WVU Medicine (Morgantown, W.Va.): Our most transformative innovation is a secure, locally hosted AI platform that leverages open-source large language models, natural language processing and retrieval-augmented generation technologies.
This in-house framework powers solutions across revenue cycle, population health, legal, marketing and more — automating coding workflows, monitoring compliance, analyzing market leakage, evaluating patient interactions, and enabling evidence-based answers grounded in our clinical guidelines. By keeping all data within our data center and avoiding third-party dependencies, we’ve reduced costs while creating a scalable foundation for continuous innovation.
Beri Ridgeway, MD. Enterprise Chief of Staff at Cleveland Clinic: We are always looking for innovative ways to support our providers. This year, we began rolling out AI documentation software across our U.S. locations. Though it’s early, our clinicians are finding this technology transformative. Providers report the tool helps them enjoy patient care more, improves face-to-face interactions, and reduces time spent charting and completing administrative tasks.
Joseph P. McGuirk, DO. Director of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies and Cellular Therapeutics at The University of Kansas Cancer Center (Kansas City): The most transformative innovation at our cancer center is our culture of intense patient safety and well-being — a commitment to always put the patient first. This is true in both “state-of-the-art” established therapies and the most cutting-edge clinical trials.
Our focus on safety attracts top talent to care for the sickest patients using innovative therapies and research. We’re a global leader in cellular therapeutics for cancer, autoimmune and neurologic disorders. Recently, we enrolled the first patient in a first-in-human study of a new cellular therapy that targets three cancer molecules — a potential leap beyond current CAR T therapies that target only one. Our unwavering safety culture, in place for 17 years, underpins this innovation and reinforces our status as a destination center.
Linda Matzigkeit. Chief Administrative Officer at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta: In September 2024, we opened Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Arthur M. Blank Hospital, a 19-story, 2-million-square-foot facility built after 10 years of strategic planning.
We designed all inpatient rooms with patient and family experience in mind. Each room includes interactive information boards for care updates and door signal boards displaying isolation status, safety risks and preferred language. Nurse server storage areas allow access to supplies from inside and outside rooms, reducing disruptions.
The facility is home to 90 autonomous mobile robots — the largest hospital fleet in the country — and uses real-time location system technology for asset management and staff safety. Our deep integration of medical devices supports real-time decision-making and caregiver efficiency.
In 2025, we’ll open The Marcus Center for Cellular Therapy, offering a full range of treatments for a variety of diseases. This positions Children’s as a national leader in new, child-focused therapies.
Roberta Schwartz, PhD. Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Houston Methodist (Houston): At Houston Methodist, we’ve implemented several impactful innovations. AI-powered operating room cameras have improved safety and boosted surgical volume by more than 10% without increasing hours — and have also helped reduce infection rates.
In our patient rooms, we’ve redesigned care holistically. Virtual nursing supports tasks like documentation, medication checks and nightly rounds. Our respiratory therapy team can now assist bedside teams remotely.
We also use predictive analytics to enhance patient care and support physicians with timely, actionable data. These technologies, collectively, are transforming our ability to deliver top-tier care.
Robin Damschroder. President of Value-Based Enterprise and CFO at Henry Ford Health (Detroit): 2024 was a year defined by innovation for Henry Ford Health, as we combined forces in a joint venture with Ascension’s southeast Michigan and Flint-area healthcare facilities, bringing our team of forward-thinking healthcare champions to 50,000 strong. Through this process, we’re enhancing and integrating technologies to simplify and enhance patient communications, HR and supply chain processes, clinical care and more.
A focus of this work is the modernizing, streamlining and standardizing of our expanded organization’s electronic medical records system. At the same time, we broke ground on our Future of Health: Detroit initiatives, which aim to revitalize the Detroit neighborhood we’ve called home for 110 years. That includes the creation of a 1.2 million-square-foot hospital expansion, a state-of-the-art medical research facility, housing, green space and more with our partners Michigan State University, the Detroit Pistons, the Gilbert Family Foundation and Shirley Ryan AbilityLab.
