The 58 leaders featured in this article are speaking at Becker’s 10th Annual Health IT + Digital Health + RCM Conference. The conference will take place Sept. 30th – Oct. 3rd at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago. If you’d like to be considered for a speaking spot, please reach out to rhaseman@beckershealthcare.com.
Note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: How do you see your teams evolving in the next two years? What roles and/or skills will you focus on and what will fade?
Judd Hollander, MD. Senior Vice President of Healthcare Delivery Innovation at Thomas Jefferson University Health: We (my team) believe the most important thing about building a team is to have engagement of people who are passionate about the mission and possess complimentary skill sets that allows the team to grow. Whenever we have turnover, we do an analysis of whether we need to replace that skill set or whether the team benefits from the addition of a new skill. Since we often focus on having the expert with any skill set create redundancy by teaching someone else that same skill, we may lose good people but seldom totally lose the skill. I don’t believe we can predict the skills we will need several years in advance but do believe we can develop a system that facilitates continuous growth of our team.
Bryan Graven. CIO and Executive Director ITS at Waterbury Health and Eastern CT Health Network: Over the next two years, we’re focused on growing roles in automation, data science and AI-driven workflow optimization. Traditional support functions will shrink as cloud and self-support systems take over. Our goal is to shift from system maintenance to engineering smarter, scalable solutions that improve care and efficiency.
Rajiv Pramanik, MD. CIO and Chief Health Informatics Officer at Contra Costa Health: We aim to replicate what we have done in the clinical space with our EHR and develop a platform across our other business functions, relying more on information security, workflow informaticists and process improvement professionals. This will help streamline operations and boost efficiency. We anticipate we will continue to move away from software development and focus on automation based on standardization.
Jeffrey Sattler, PharmD, DO FAMIA. Hospitalist, Epic System Physician Builder, System Medical Informatics Physician and System CDI Physician Advisor at Saint Luke’s Health System: Teams will need to adjust to more fully embracing emerging technologies to offload tasks and to learn how to become a human in the loop or editor more than a creator. There are still many legacy processes in healthcare and beyond which need optimization. Technology in many areas is no longer the primary barrier, rather, organizational change management with focusing on teams and process(es) are the challenges. Excelling in these areas will separate those who succeed faster and those who are left behind.
Muhammad Siddiqui. CIO at Reid Health: Over the next two years, I see our IT teams becoming much more agile and tightly connected with our clinical and operational partners. Instead of just supporting day-to-day needs, we’ll be more proactive, helping drive strategy and improve care through smart use of technology.
We’ll be focusing heavily on building skills in data science, AI, cybersecurity and clinical informatics. These areas will help us innovate and make a real impact on patient outcomes. On the flip side, roles that revolve around manual data entry or maintaining outdated legacy systems will start to phase out as we automate more processes and shift to modern tools.
In short, we’re evolving from support teams into strategic partners with a stronger, more specialized skill set to match.
Roberta Schwartz. Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Houston Methodist: Over the next two years, teams will continue to embrace tools and digital technologies to aid in their jobs. Some tools will help or replace menial tasks to allow for more meaningful patient outcomes and business improvement. At the same time, these innovations will mature and create opportunities to provide better health care for more people. At Houston Methodist, we’re focused on roles that can bridge the gap between technology and patient care. Our Center for Innovation was developed this way more than eight years ago, with the goal to blend team member perspectives with various skillsets in IT, data analytics and more, along with clinical expertise and skills in change management. Ultimately, we’re building a workforce that is as adaptable and forward-looking as the technologies we deploy.
Melinda Cooling, DNP, MBA, FAANP. Chief Nurse and Advanced Practice Provider Executive at OSF HealthCare: Nursing teams will need to evolve both clinically and technologically to meet the growing complexity of patient needs, workforce shortages and rapid advancements in digital health. As healthcare continues to shift toward value-based care, the importance of interdisciplinary, team-based collaboration cannot be overstated. Nurses will need to work closely with professionals from other disciplines—such as social work, pharmacy, physicians and APPs—to deliver coordinated, patient-centered care.
Comfort and proficiency with digital tools will become essential. Nurses must integrate these technologies into their workflows to effectively support patients and families in managing their health. Successful implementation will depend on embedding digital solutions seamlessly into daily nursing practice.
At the same time, nurse leaders must continue to emphasize critical thinking, evidence-based practice and a strong focus on quality outcomes and the patient experience. These foundational elements will remain central to excellent nursing care, even as the tools and environments evolve.
Finally, agility and a growth mindset will be critical. The pace of change in healthcare is accelerating, and adaptability will no longer be optional—it will be a core professional competency.
Nolan Chang, MD. Executive Vice President of Strategy, Corporate Development and Finance at The Permanente Federation as well as Medical Director for Business Management at Southern California Permanente Medical Group: The evolution of care is expanding beyond the traditional role of a physician during a clinic visit. Value-based care depends on team-based collaboration, which increasingly includes patients and their families as active members of the care team. To support this shift, clinicians and support staff must be aligned in this transformation and embrace their role as educators. Delivering care today goes beyond practicing medicine—it requires empowering patients through health education. This patient-centered model, which recognizes that patient expectations are continually evolving, marks a shift away from the traditional paradigm where physicians solely drive outcomes and care delivery.
Diane Constantine, MBA, MSN, NI-BC, NEA-BC. Director for Clinical Informatics at University of Maryland Medical System: Over the next two years, our clinical informatics team will evolve from a primarily support-focused function to a strategic driver of transformation across our 10-hospital academic health system. We’re prioritizing skills in data literacy, AI readiness and human-centered change management to ensure our informaticists can guide clinicians through the growing complexity of digital health tools. Traditional roles focused solely on build or maintenance will give way to agile, cross-trained teams that operate across settings and service lines. Our goal is to embed informatics deeper into clinical and operational decision-making, making the team an essential partner in improving outcomes, reducing clinician burden and advancing innovation system-wide.
Deepti Pandita, MD, FACP, FAMIA. Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Vice President of Clinical Informatics and Associate Professor of Medicine at University of California Irvine Health: Clinical informatics is evolving rapidly, and the next two years will bring meaningful shifts driven by AI integration, interoperability mandates, value-based care and patient engagement. AI will move beyond pilots into real-world deployments in decision support, documentation, predictive analytics and patient communication.
Clinical informaticians will be key in validating, implementing and governing these systems to ensure safety and equity. Roles that will likely fade are basic EHR configuration. As much of this will be commoditized or handled by vendor-provided tools or AI-assisted workflows. Manual reporting and registry work will shift to automated pipelines and self-service analytics. Traditional rules based CDS will be replaced by AI-powered, adaptive CDS based on real-world evidence and predictive modeling.
Crystal Broj, CPDHTS. Enterprise Chief Digital Transformation Officer at Medical University of South Carolina: Over the next two years, I see our teams evolving to embrace more agile, cross-functional capabilities that go beyond traditional IT roles. Prompt engineering will become essential—not just within IT but across departments—as teams learn to interact with AI tools in ways that enhance their daily work. Change management will remain a cornerstone of our success, and the need for strong business analysis skills won’t fade. We’ll always need to understand business problems and identify the right technical solutions. What may shift is how we treat projects that are considered adjunct to the EHR. As tools become more nimble and adaptable, the outdated mindset that only EHR-related work deserves priority will fade. Instead, we’ll continue to maintain the EHR but also find a way to focus on initiatives that directly impact patient care and operational efficiency in new ways, requiring a new framework for evaluating, prioritizing and rapidly deploying high-impact digital solutions.
Biju Samkutty. COO, International and Enterprise Automation at Mayo Clinic: Over the next two years, our teams will increasingly evolve to integrate intelligent automation and AI as core capabilities, recognizing them as critical enablers of transformative care delivery. We will focus on building skills in data science, AI-driven decision support and automation strategy, ensuring that team members can seamlessly collaborate with these technologies. Roles centered on manual or transactional tasks will evolve to incorporate more analytical thinking, problem-solving and collaboration with digital tools. This evolution will empower our teams to drive greater impact, efficiency and value across the healthcare ecosystem.
Ismet Sharich. Director for Access and Financial Clearance at Riverside Healthcare: Over the next two years, I see our patient access teams evolving into a more centralized, mission-driven workforce with an expanded scope that covers the entire patient journey from pre-access to post-service collections. We will focus on developing adaptable, growth-oriented employees who are not only technically skilled but also purpose-driven in serving the community. Skills in data analytics, patient engagement and revenue cycle integration will become increasingly critical, while siloed, task-based roles will gradually fade. Our goal is to foster a team that is proactive, cross-trained and equipped to deliver seamless access and financial clarity for every patient encounter.
Lisa Rosenberg. COO at UNC Physicians Network: I think AI is integral to enhancing the workflows of our clinicians and teammates, ensuring that we deliver exceptional care and improved patient outcomes. At UNC Health, our focus is on empowering our workforce, improving patient outcomes and maintaining job roles, not replacing them. I believe AI can help support our teams and increase job satisfaction by enhancing training and supporting the excellent work our teams are doing already. Healthcare has always been about deploying innovative tools and technologies. It’s exciting for me personally to be on this journey.
Joshua Tarkoff, MD, MBA. Physician and IT Director at Nicklaus Children’s Health System: Over the next two years, I expect teams to increasingly rely on AI to automate administrative tasks such as document faxing and prior authorization requests, reducing the need for staff in these roles. We will focus on recruiting and training personnel with AI literacy skills to streamline workflows and enhance patient care. Clinics adopting these technologies will likely achieve efficiency gains, potentially reducing staffing for routine tasks and thus improving financial performance. All staff will need to develop AI-related skills to remain competitive as these competencies will be essential for future healthcare roles.
James M. Blum, MD, FCCM. Chief Health Information Officer at University of Iowa Health Care: I believe that our teams will continue to leverage AI in an increasingly extensive manner across the enterprise. Ambient and AI-based chart mining have already become integral parts of our care system, and we will see their continued application in new locations. Over the next two years, we aim to pursue agentic solutions that will truly transform the care process rather than merely augmenting the processes we currently use.
I foresee that several skills essential in today’s digital healthcare environment may become less critical as agentic solutions eliminate many of the burdens associated with interacting with existing systems. These advancements will likely be trialed clinically within the next two years, marking a significant step forward in healthcare innovation.
Michelle Tutem Greame, PA-C, MSHS. Assistant Vice President for Revenue Integrity at Inova Health System: Looking ahead, I envision our teams transitioning into more strategic and analytical roles as automation continues to reshape traditional revenue cycle functions. Tasks that are routine and repetitive, such as manual status checks and basic data entry, will increasingly be managed by automation. As these functions become automated, our focus will shift toward higher-value work that requires critical thinking, clinical insight and cross-departmental collaboration.
We will continue to invest in roles like data analysts and revenue integrity specialists, who can interpret trends, identify the root causes of denials and proactively guide process improvements. Additionally, we are committed to upskilling our current team members, offering training in digital literacy, analytics and problem-solving to ensure they thrive in this more automated and agile environment.
Ultimately, our goal is to have our team members doing less processing and more thinking, allowing them to contribute more meaningfully to our organization’s success.
Sunil Dadlani. Executive Vice President, Chief Information and Digital Transformation Officer and Chief Cyber Security Officer at Atlantic Health System: Over the next two years, my healthcare IT teams will evolve significantly, with a strong emphasis on data science and analytics (including AI/ML, big data, visualization), cybersecurity (threat intelligence, security architecture, incident response), cloud computing (architecture, security, DevOps) and digital health/patient experience (UX/UI, telehealth, mHealth, interoperability). Consequently, we’ll prioritize roles and skills in these areas, alongside business analysis and project management with healthcare domain expertise. Conversely, we anticipate a decline in the need for purely traditional infrastructure management, manual data entry/basic reporting, siloed technical expertise and reactive problem-solving.
Teresa Ash, PharmD, MHA, BCPS. Director for System Operations, Digital Health at UC Health: With AI’s growth and eventual ubiquitousness throughout the healthcare landscape, it will become necessary for digital health services to better align with clinical and operational teams to maximize utility. This means our digital health teams will evolve from task-driven, firefighting teams to proactive thought leaders who can better understand the clinical and operational needs and assist these teams by leveraging the use and design of AI-driven tools. To this end, team members with a clinical or operational background will join the digital health team to foster cross-functional collaboration. There will always be a need for technical specialists, but these specialists will be led by operational and clinical leaders skilled in project management and cross-functional collaboration.
Heather Welch, RHIA, CHC. Senior Director for Revenue Cycle at Firelands Health: In the next two years, I see our team evolving with a stronger emphasis on analytical skills. As technology and data-driven decision-making become more integral, the ability to interpret complex information, identify trends and make strategic recommendations will be crucial. While some traditional operational roles may fade or shift, analytical expertise will take center stage, driving efficiency, innovation and smarter business decisions.
Samuel Pueringer, MHA. Senior Director for Retail Health Operations at Hartford HealthCare: I think adaptability will be a key skill to focus on. Things change and they change at a much faster pace today than they have historically. This is a reality that I think is even more prevalent in healthcare as we can be a bit behind other industries in some respects. Those teams we see today that possess a few adaptable individuals I see as needing to become teams full of the very adaptable. Professionals that can shape the way they lead to adapt to changing levels of ambiguity, technological evolution, patient needs, fluctuating scopes of influence and a diverse workforce will be incredibly successful.
James Matera, DO, FACOI, ACPE. Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs and CMO at CentraState Medical Center: The ever-changing landscape of healthcare will demand flexibility and adaptability far into the future. One of the things I am focusing on will be the accountability of care teams across departments, sections, divisions and medical directorships. This requires at least a DYAD or more likely, a TRIAD model to cross train operational needs, budgetary restrictions and of course, quality clinical outcome. Quality must be woven into the very fabric of what our clinicians are doing on the floors, in the clinics and across the service lines. The quality teams need to be more front line instead of data collecting bodies that are only peripherally involved.
Bree Andrews, MD, MPH. Chief Wellness and Vitality Officer at University of Chicago Medicine: We have already paired our digital and our patient+employee experience channels, which makes for meaningful integrated changes. For well-being, I hope that each team member has a multi-faceted approach to their work to improve both experience across our health system-our workforce and patients alike.
Shannon Cameron. COO, Revenue Cycle at Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians: Over the next two years, I expect to see our revenue cycle teams evolving significantly as we continue to embrace automation, analytics and value-based care models. We’re moving from a transactional, labor-heavy approach to a more data-driven, strategic function.
Key roles and skills we will focus on include data and analytics proficiency where we’ll increasingly rely on team members who can interpret RCM analytics to drive decision-making, optimize payer performance and identify root causes of denials or underpayments. Technology and automation fluency will also be a large integration into our workflow. As we expand our use of RPA, AI and predictive modeling, we’ll need people who can implement and manage these tools especially in claims processing, denial management and prior authorizations. Another important shift already occurring is cross-functional collaboration. As RCM becomes more integrated with clinical and financial outcomes, we’ll prioritize individuals who can bridge gaps between departments, especially those with backgrounds in informatics, compliance and population health and, more importantly, the patient’s financial experience. With the continued consumerization of healthcare, skills related to patient communication, empathy and personalized financial counseling will grow in importance.
I believe the roles and skills that will fade will include manual processing roles. As automation takes over high-volume, repetitive tasks like charge entry, payment posting and eligibility verification, these roles will shrink or evolve. In addition, we are moving away from siloed specialization roles that are hyper-specialized in favor of more versatile, cross-trained team members who can adapt across the revenue cycle continuum. I also see basic data entry or call-center-only positions being replaced or merged with tech-enabled, customer-centric positions that require higher digital literacy.
Overall, we’re investing in upskilling our current workforce and recruiting talent who are tech-savvy, analytical and patient-focused. Our vision is to build a more agile, efficient and insight-driven revenue cycle operation that aligns with the broader shift toward value-based care.
Charles Emerman, MD. Chair, Emergency Medicine at MetroHealth Medical Center: Our emphasis has been on intra-team communication. The patient experience office identifies communication between providers, nurses and medics as a key driver of patient satisfaction. We have instituted expectations of discussion about patient plans both at the beginning of the encounter and at the time of discharge. We have seen a nice bump up in our patient experience scores
Tim Calahan, MS, MBA, DBA. Chief Technology Officer at University of Michigan Health: Over the next two years, our teams at MM will continue evolving to support our core IT modernization initiatives, with a strong focus on cloud migration, particularly moving critical systems like Epic and Sectra to the cloud. As we modernize, roles with cloud architecture, security and platform engineering expertise will become increasingly vital. We’ll also prioritize upskilling in data integration and analytics to fully leverage our cloud investments. Traditional infrastructure roles will begin to fade as we reduce our on-premise footprint, shifting our focus toward strategic, scalable and service-oriented capabilities.
Mark Helms. Executive Director for Strategy and Analytics at UChicago Medicine: First, I’ll focus on the constants that will not change within our strategic planning function. We will always need to apply critical thinking, analytic rigor and clear sequential communication to our methodology and recommendations. That said, where I anticipate evolution is how we gather and collect that analysis, particularly changing the ‘what’ (types of data) and ‘how’ (process we use to analyze and develop recommendations). More specifically:
- ‘What (Types of data): This involves leveraging existing datasets in innovative ways, such as more directly integrating mobile analytics and consumer segmentation into our strategic planning.
- ‘How’ (Process): Primarily, this is around leveraging AI for synthesis and eventually automation of first-level analysis. This evolution should enable us to assess opportunities not only in a reactive, pull-based, hypothesis-driven manner but also more proactively in a push-based, ‘What key trends am I not thinking to ask about?’ kind of way.
Our team and function is set up well for this evolution with a focus on having the right skills to build out the appropriate analytic infrastructure and allow our strengths in developing recommendations and communications to flourish.
Dirk Steinert, MD, MBA. Vice President and CMO, Ambulatory Care at ThedaCare: ThedaCare is growing and will continue to evolve and thrive over the next two years and beyond. One way we are growing is by supporting more diverse specialties while engaging our colleagues at Froedtert Health and the Medical College of Wisconsin.
We are also launching a robust Internal medicine residency program through our graduate medical education program. This will complement other residency programs we are starting in the next three to four years. Implementing residency programs at ThedaCare directly aligns with the organization’s commitment to enhancing access to care for the people in our region by recruiting and retaining highly trained physicians from primary care to specialty care. We will also expand our advanced practice clinician fellowship program to develop solidly trained clinical partners for the communities we serve.
In addition to these programs, we are also continuing to build relationships between our primary care teams and our specialty care teams to enhance the patient experience and expand our culture of continuous improvement with high quality, patient-centered care. These relationships will allow our system to continue delivering on our promise, empowering each person to live their unique, best life.
Klaus Thaler, MD, MBA. Vice President and CMO at CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center: We have to focus on our staff reducing turnover and increasing retention. In this vein, we have to be innovative in opening new recruitment pipelines for clinical and ancillary staff. We need to reduce burn out by supporting wellbeing activities in and out of the workplace. We have to be strategic in the choice of service offers for the next ten years with respect to growth forecasts in the inpatient and outpatient sector. We must work on equity in healthcare by reducing disparities in the communities we serve.
Roles that have support functions will be reduced or eliminated, such as in scheduling, communications, language services. These services will be centralized and supported by AI.
Inpatient clinical services, such as ‘bread and butter surgeries,’ joint surgeries and spine surgeries will move increasingly or entirely to outpatient centers or ‘procedure shops.’
Brick and mortar clinics, especially in rural areas, will be replaced by virtual clinics and telemedicine. This will eliminate geographic barriers to essential healthcare services.
Rahul Kashyap, MD, MBA, FCCM. Medical Director for Research at WellSpan Health as well as Assistant Professor at Mayo Clinic: Over the next two years, our hospital teams will evolve to be more agile, tech-driven and patient-centric. As health IT continues to advance, roles focused on data analytics, telehealth coordination and cybersecurity will become critical. We will prioritize hiring tech-savvy professionals, who bring digital fluency and a fresh perspective to healthcare delivery. Health IT will play a pivotal role, not just in streamlining operations but also in advancing education. We plan to utilize knowledge of LLMs into our training programs to teach clinical research methods to medical students, residents and faculty members, making complex topics more accessible and personalized.
Additionally, employee well-being will take center stage with increased focus on mental health support, flexible scheduling and professional development to boost retention and morale. Traditional administrative roles may fade or consolidate due to automation and AI, enabling us to streamline operations and reduce overhead. Overall, our goal is to balance innovation with cost-effectiveness, enhancing care quality while managing resources efficiently. By investing in the right skills and tools, we can meet the changing expectations of both patients and employees in a dynamic healthcare landscape.
Chris Carmody. Chief Technology Officer at UPMC: I believe with the emergence of generative AI, our IT team will advance our ability to deliver IT services and solutions more efficiently and effectively than ever before. This will require our continued focus on communications and collaboration with our stakeholders to truly maximum the promise of AI and other emerging technologies.
Christine Young, DNP, MBA, RN, NEA-BC. Chief Nursing Officer at Akron Children’s: Over the next two years, nursing teams will evolve to take on more integrated roles in care delivery, contributing valuable expertise to the healthcare team. We will leverage AI to ensure nurses are working to the full scope of their license, and this will require developing AI solutions for nurses by nurses. Including nurses from the frontline will be key to success to ensure technology adds value to their workflows. We will invest in developing advanced assessment, informatics and leadership skills that position nurses as key drivers of quality, safety and patient experience within interprofessional teams.
Zafar Chaudry, MD, MS, MIS, MBA, CITP. Senior Vice President, Chief Digital Officer, and Chief AI and Information Officer at Seattle Children’s: In the next two years, healthcare IT teams will rapidly evolve, driven by accelerated digital transformation with a strong emphasis on AI/ML for diagnostics and efficiency, robust cybersecurity to protect patient data, advanced data analytics for improved outcomes and the continued expansion of telehealth and cloud computing. Consequently, roles like AI/ML specialists, cybersecurity analysts, healthcare data scientists, clinical informatics specialists and cloud architects will be in high demand, requiring skills in data analysis, AI proficiency, security protocols and cloud platform management. Conversely, traditional roles such as medical transcription and basic administrative data entry will likely fade due to automation while other roles like radiology will evolve to integrate AI tools, underscoring a critical need for upskilling and adaptation within the healthcare IT workforce.
Prasana Ruxmohan, MHA. Ambulatory Operations Transformation Specialist at UCI Health: Teams will evolve to emphasize analytical thinking, continuous process improvement and digital fluency. A central focus will be cultivating storytelling as a core capability, harnessing data and lived experiences to shape decisions, build alignment and drive meaningful transformation. Storytelling is a powerful tool that transcends data alone, making complex ideas memorable, relatable and actionable at scale. By bridging the gap between strategy and execution, it helps teams understand the ‘why’ behind their work, inspiring a collective commitment to advancing care delivery.
Reid Stephan. Vice President and CIO at St. Luke’s Health System: Over the next two years, our teams will evolve to integrate AI more deeply across operations, focusing on productivity gains through automation, decision support and advanced analytics. We’ll prioritize roles that combine clinical or operational domain expertise with data science and AI fluency while traditional siloed IT functions will gradually diminish. Strategic business partnerships will be critical, ensuring technology initiatives are tightly aligned with evolving care models and financial realities. Internally, we’ll expand development capabilities to build and iterate AI-driven tools that meet our unique needs, fostering a more agile, innovation-centric culture.
Suken Shah, MD. Regional Director for Interventional Radiology at MSK-Monmouth as well as Director for Digital Transformation, Innovation and Strategy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center: Healthcare is changing rapidly in the United States. The technology acceleration brought forward by the pandemic has led to significant changes in healthcare delivery. As a result, adaptability and change management become critically important skills for future success. Strategic thinkers who can separate out short-term and long-term planning will be successful in this market. Collaborative thinking which explores out-of-the-box options for innovation and curiosity will become the tools for improvement. The most important skill will be the ability to break silos and create a culture of collaboration and teamwork. The skills focused hierarchical approach will sunset as new skills and management strategies emerge. Robotic and AI will become foundational technologies for efficiency. Ability to navigate and manage these solutions will be critically important for standing out in the market. Finally, consideration for expenses will be important. These solutions are not cheap, therefore will require a sound understanding of the complex ROI model in healthcare.
Stephen Parodi, MD. Executive Vice President at The Permanente Medical Group and The Permanente Federation: We’re facing a critical nationwide physician shortage in the next few years, particularly in primary care. Organizations with value-based care models that leverage care teams and technology to maintain and expand access and address costs and workforce burnout will be best positioned for ongoing challenges. That means we’ll need every team member practicing to the full extent of their education and training which leads to both improved career satisfaction and efficiency. AI and other technologies will be critical components aimed at reducing the workload for physicians so we can achieve better outcomes. AI scribes are already documenting physician-patient conversations and draft summary notes, allowing physicians to focus on patients during visits while also reducing the administrative burden on physicians. We want clinicians spending time on their fundamental calling which is to improve patient lives.
Kristine Lee, MD. Associate Executive Director at The Permanente Medical Group: The influence of AI likely will grow in every area of healthcare, from improving patient access to care, to personalized medicine, automated clinician workflows and seamless collaboration across systems and geographies. To realize AI’s potential and guide adoption will require collaborative teams that bring together perspectives from clinical, operational, data science, technology, legal, privacy and equity experts. We’ll also need ongoing evaluation of AI tools for safety, effectiveness, accuracy and equity. In addition, we’ll need good communicators who can help build confidence among their fellow physicians, staff and patients about how AI augments, rather than replaces, the capabilities of physicians and care teams. And because AI can analyze and sort patient messages and direct simple questions to appropriate teams, we’ll see less physician time spent on administrative tasks and more time spent engaging with patients.
Sarah Poncelet. Chair, Strategy Consulting at Mayo Clinic: I see the technology advancement continuing to accelerate with the need to continue to build a technology ready workforce. As we have seen the rise of prompt engineering and vibe coding transforming software development, making generated code more accurate, reliable and with multiple agent platforms to validate it, it changes the roles for the product owner or business leader to a more strategic function. Teams will increasingly need to upskill to train and validate technology solutions, engage with and challenge generative AI. And while the technology may be ready the integration within process flow and change management cannot be underestimated. My team members will increase in strategic decision making, operational understanding, testing of engineering solutions and change management for implementation.
I will focus on critical thinking and growth mindset individuals who can see the art of the possible and problem solve how we might get there. I will focus on those that look outside of healthcare and understand how technology will solve problems we have in new ways and how to integrate into current systems and processes. What may fade will be the entry-level programmers and manual quality assurance testers. Most roles will become more advanced, requiring critical thinking and skills to challenge the generative AI-driven answers.
Ben Kaplan, MPA. Senior Director for AI Governance and Products at Mount Sinai Health System: In the next two years, our teams will lean into cross-functional collaboration, adaptability and speed. We’ll focus on making tools work together seamlessly and helping people across the organization use them confidently. The skills we value most will shift from deep technical silos to flexible thinkers who can connect dots across clinical, operational and digital spaces. Staying curious and learning fast will matter more than ever.
Hernando Ruiz-Jimenez. Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Geisinger: We need to become more data-driven. Marketing managers and strategists will need to hone their analytical skills. This means truly understanding where data is coming from and what the implications are of the information it provides. For example, most managers understand that to improve acquisition they need to improve click-through rate. But in order to truly be effective, marketing professionals need to understand where the data is coming from and the behavior of the consumers. They will also need to become knowledgeable and involved with digital day to day tactics like CRM and Search. By deeply understanding consumer behavior, marketers can craft more personalized, effective campaigns that both drive engagement and growth.
Digital marketing team members will probably become more specialized around the platforms and solutions used to support the marketing function. In general, a challenge will continue to be our hybrid environments with some team members in the office and others working remotely as we need to drive consistent engagement and development opportunities for all.
Regina Foley, PhD, MBA, RN. Executive Vice President, Chief Nurse Executive, and Chief Transformation and Integration Officer at Hackensack Meridian Health: At Hackensack Meridian Health, we are actively looking to leverage technology to reduce the administrative and regulatory burden on our bedside caregivers, enabling them to focus more on direct patient care. Through the implementation of virtual nursing and exploring opportunities in both AI and robotic process automation, our goal is to streamline routine tasks and care coordination, helping the bedside team access patient information quickly and accurately, and minimizing the time spent navigating complex systems. These innovations hold the promise of not only enhancing operational efficiency but also improving caregiver satisfaction and patient outcomes by returning valuable time to hands-on care. We’re investing in leadership development to equip our team with the skills and tools needed to effectively guide them through change management at the bedside while also supporting the retention of these caregivers who span four generations and have diverse and evolving needs.
Lisa Carter, NE-BC, FABC. Southern Regional President at Ballad Health: Creativity and innovation will continue to drive the evolution of roles within hospitals. Fading are traditional ways of operating within the healthcare industry. Teams will need leaders who remain curious about redesigning how care is delivered and how we can continue to improve efficiencies and decrease overall healthcare costs. Over the next two years, how teams adopt and champion generative AI will be critical in achieving future success.
Rachel Felix. Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at Boston Medical Center Health System: In today’s evolving landscape, agility and a strategic systems approach will become increasingly important to healthcare marketing. With the integration of Boston Medical Center – Brighton and Boston Medical Center – South into Boston Medical Center Health System, we are looking to scale existing systems and processes to serve our new patients and communities. Our team’s agility has been crucial to meeting the demands of our newly expanded health system while simultaneously maintaining momentum across existing workstreams and campaigns. These skills have enabled our marketing and communications team to successfully develop new brand identities for the two hospitals that honor their legacies as cornerstone institutions in their communities while also positioning them as leading choices for healthcare in the future.
Fernando Small, PhD, CHCIO. Executive Director for Clinical and Business Solutions at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center: As a leader, I often reflect on how I can support the ongoing growth and development of my teams. Whether it is over the next two years or beyond, I would expect high-performing teams to find ways of incorporating best practices and new innovations into their everyday processes where it makes sense to do so. For example, we often encourage and challenge our leaders and teammates to identify ways to learn new skills and opportunities to improve their efforts through automation and/or process streamlining.
We also ask our teams to seek out better ways to collaborate with their operational and technical colleagues to help foster knowledge exchange across multiple areas of the institution. This approach is reinforced across multiple roles regardless of whether the individual is in a formal leadership position. It is important to keep our teams engaged and to emphasize that their system knowledge does not fade over time, but rather evolves based on new functionality and workflows needed to support our clinical services.
To that end, to remain competitive and relevant over the next couple of years, organizations and their technology teams have to be flexible when making investments in emerging technologies. Ongoing investments in core platforms, infrastructure and in emerging technology like generative and agentic AI are substantial components to an institution’s future success.
Sachin K. Gupta, MD, FAAFP. CMO at UNC Physicians Network: As a physician leader, my team has traditionally been focused on issues related to clinician behavior, quality, compensation, access and experience. However, over time, we are finding that physician leaders are being asked to become increasingly involved with issues that they have not traditionally been deeply involved with. Topics such as budget creation, supply chain improvements, identifying opportunities for cost savings and revenue enhancement. It’s been wonderful to see how clinical and operational leaders can come together to brainstorm and execute on initiatives far beyond what any single team could have accomplished. It speaks to the value of a dyad leadership structure and as a result, there have been tangible improvements for the clinicians, patients and the healthcare system; it’s a great win all around.
Anthony Anani, MD, MPH, MBA. CMO at Cook Children’s Medical Center – Prosper TX: My hospital campus is a start-up, new hospital, and, over the next two years, we will continue to be in a growth phase, adding newer services and consolidating on the services we already offer. We have an opportunity to grow with our community which is one of the fastest growing areas in the country, so our plans will need to be accelerated to meet those needs. My hope is that in the next two years, we will be able to provide most of the pediatric care our community needs close to their homes. We continue to leverage technology and to access our more specialized services at our main campus in a seamless and collaborative way for the benefits of our patients and their families.
Over the next two years, I do not feel like we will have any role or focus fade as again it’s a consolidation of our services, and the focus will then shift to building niche programs for our community needs. We will continue to focus on quality of care and patient safety to ensure that families that entrust us with their children do that knowing we will do everything for that child to get them back on track.
Wendy Ross, MD. Director for the Center for Autism and Neurodiversity at Jefferson Health: As the Director of Jefferson’s Center for Autism and Neurodiversity, I see healthcare teams evolving to meet the needs of neurodivergent people who experience the world and communicate differently. Skills acquired to care for this population improve care for everyone. Built environments will also increasingly be designed to improve the patient experience. Jefferson’s Honickman Center is an example of a specialty care building designed both with and for the many populations we serve.
Ken Nepple, MD, FACS. Associate Chief Health Information Officer, Physician Value Officer, Clinical Documentation Improvement Advisor and Clinical Professor of Urology at University of Iowa Health Care: Our internal team is amazing, but what I already see is expanding ‘our team’ to incorporate partners in industry who have both content expertise and bandwidth. By partnering for innovation, we have been able to go from ‘zero to 60’ in quickly adopting technology that has a significant positive impact on patients and providers. We have established that model by partnering with AI companies in ambient transcription and chart abstraction, to not only turn on the tool but also to be actively engaged in the product improvement. That evolution will continue to allow for ‘team’ to be defined more broadly with the potential to build/implement more quickly and have some of the frustration start to fade.
Sitt Paing, MD. CIO at Pun Hlaing Hospitals: Over the next two years, I envision a fundamental shift in the structure and skill set of our healthcare IT teams. We will transition from the traditional ‘T-shaped’ model—where team members possess deep expertise in a single domain with limited breadth—to a ‘V-shaped’ model. In this new paradigm, individuals maintain strong specialization while also cultivating a broader and deeper understanding of adjacent disciplines.
As AI increasingly automates routine, skill-based tasks, the human differentiators will become clear: communication, critical thinking and human-centered design. These competencies will no longer be optional—they will be essential.
The role of healthcare IT professionals will evolve beyond technical proficiency. We will prioritize building teams that are not only technologically adept but also empathetic, adaptive and strategically aligned with clinical and patient needs. The future belongs to those who can bridge technical execution with a nuanced understanding of the human experience in healthcare.
In essence, we are investing in the development of multi-disciplinary, design-minded professionals who can navigate complexity, collaborate across functions and co-create innovative solutions that truly advance patient care.
Minal Shah, MD. Medical Director, Virtual Care, Hospital Medicine and System Physician Informaticist at CommonSpirit Health: Healthcare is entering a period of rapid transformation, and the workforce will need to adapt to stay effective in this shifting landscape.
First, AI technology will continue to grow in its capability and precision. Health systems that focus on upskilling their clinicians in tech literacy, AI integration and AI validation will maximize the impact of their workforce. For administrative roles, AI will act as a trusted colleague, offloading tedious manual tasks and allowing employees to focus on human-centered work. At CommonSpirit Health, we’re preparing for this shift through initiatives like our AI Learning Academy, which teaches employees how to effectively use emerging technology.
Second, as healthcare systems continue the shift from fee-for-service to value-based care, clinicians will need to refine care processes to prioritize prevention, care coordination and shared accountability. From a technology standpoint, this means designing integrated workflows that reduce care fragmentation, enhance team capabilities and improve data visibility to support more informed, outcome-driven decisions.
Third, workforce shortages will continue, further accelerating the adoption of virtual and hybrid care models. Programs such as virtual nursing, teleconsultation and remote patient monitoring will continue to evolve to meet the needs of our patients. All clinicians will need to deepen their skills in virtual care delivery, remote assessment and virtual collaboration to support team-based care across many touchpoints.
At CommonSpirit Health, we are proactively investing in our workforce and digital infrastructure to ensure our clinicians are well-positioned to lead in an evolving healthcare landscape and to deliver smarter, more connected care to our communities.
Anjali Bhagra, MD, MBA. Medical Director for Automation at Mayo Clinic: As we integrate intelligent automation into clinical and operational workflows at Mayo Clinic, we’re not just adding technology—we’re reshaping the fabric of how care is delivered. Over the next two years, I believe the most successful teams will be those designed intentionally for this transformation, blending clinical insight, operational expertise and digital innovation.
We’re focused on building teams that are empowered, digitally adept and aligned around shared outcomes. These teams include clinician leaders who embrace AI insights, operational leaders skilled in process design and technical professionals who understand the nuances of healthcare delivery. We’re not just adding roles but are cultivating capabilities such as ethical AI stewardship, human-centered design, prompt engineering and adaptive thinking.
What I see fading are siloed mindsets and roles that depend solely on transactional, rules-based tasks. Those functions will transition to focus on higher-order work: clinical judgment, empathy, leadership and innovation.
When done right, AI and intelligent automation don’t just create efficiency. They create space: space for care transformation, healing and for clinicians and staff to do mission-critical work that truly matters.
Pam Austin. Senior Vice President and CIO at Ballad Health: Over the next two years, health IT teams will undergo significant transformations, shifting their focus towards digital innovation, data analytics and enhancing care delivery through technology. Roles in AI integration, cloud architecture, cybersecurity and user experience design will gain prominence, while traditional infrastructure and legacy system support roles will gradually decline. The future of health IT will be shaped by agility, interoperability and the ability to convert data into actionable insights.
Team members will need to possess not only technical expertise but also a profound understanding of clinical workflows and the capacity to collaborate effectively across diverse disciplines.
Three areas of education for future growth:
- Training approach: Well-defined roadmap integrating emerging skills like AI, cloud technologies and data literacy with organizational priorities.
- Training methods: Specialized upskilling programs, peer-led learning and collaborations with experts.
- Cultivating culture: Promoting continuous learning, innovation, curiosity and experimentation.
Albert Villarin, MD, MBA, FACEP. Vice President, Chief Medical Information Officer at Nuvance Health: In the next two years, information technology teams are expected to evolve significantly with the integration of AI and other innovations. Here are some key trends and changes we can anticipate:
- AI-augmented teams: IT teams will increasingly work alongside AI systems, which will handle routine tasks, analyze data and provide insights. This collaboration will enhance productivity and allow human team members to focus on more complex and creative tasks.
- Enhanced decision-making: AI will play a crucial role in decision-making processes by providing real-time data analysis and predictive insights. This will help IT teams make more informed decisions quickly and accurately .
- Skill development: As AI tools become more prevalent, there will be a greater emphasis on upskilling and reskilling IT professionals. Teams will need to develop new skills to effectively collaborate with AI systems and leverage their capabilities.
- Automation of routine tasks: Many routine and repetitive tasks will be automated, freeing up IT professionals to focus on strategic initiatives. This will lead to increased efficiency and reduced operational costs.
- Innovation and creativity: With AI handling more of the mundane tasks, IT teams will have more time and resources to dedicate to innovation and creative problem-solving. This will drive the development of new technologies and solutions.
- Improved cybersecurity: AI will enhance cybersecurity measures by detecting and responding to threats more quickly and accurately. IT teams will be able to proactively address security issues and protect sensitive data.
Overall, the integration of AI and other innovations will transform IT teams, making them more efficient, agile and capable of driving significant business value.
The integration of AI and other innovations will significantly reshape the roles and skills within healthcare IT teams. Here’s a breakdown of what will likely be emphasized and what might fade:
- AI specialists: Roles such as AI engineers, machine learning specialists and data scientists will be in high demand. These professionals will develop, implement and maintain AI systems.
- Data analysts: With AI generating vast amounts of data, skilled data analysts will be crucial for interpreting and leveraging this information to drive business decisions.
- Cybersecurity experts: As AI systems become more prevalent, the need for advanced cybersecurity measures will grow. Cybersecurity experts will be essential to protect against increasingly sophisticated threats.
- AI trainers: Professionals who can train AI models and ensure they perform accurately will be vital. This includes roles focused on NLP and deep learning.
- AI ethics and compliance officers: As AI usage expands, ensuring ethical practices and compliance with regulations will be critical. Roles dedicated to overseeing AI ethics and compliance will become more prominent.
Roles and skills that may fade:
- Routine data entry: AI can automate repetitive data entry tasks, reducing the need for human intervention in these areas.
- Basic IT support: Many basic troubleshooting and support tasks can be handled by AI-driven chatbots and automated systems, potentially reducing the demand for entry-level IT support roles.
- Manual testing: Automated testing tools powered by AI can perform extensive testing more efficiently than manual methods, leading to a decline in manual testing roles.
- Traditional programming: While programming skills will still be important, the nature of coding may shift towards working with AI tools and frameworks rather than traditional programming languages.
Overall, the focus will shift towards roles that require advanced technical skills, strategic thinking and the ability to work alongside (collaborative intelligence) AI systems. Upskilling and reskilling will be essential to adapt to these changes.
Kathy Sanford, DBA, RN, FAAN. Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at CommonSpirit Health: We are putting an emphasis on empowering nurses through collaboration and technology. Our clinical teams will continue to evolve over the next two years, prioritizing interdisciplinary teamwork to ensure nurses’ expertise is fully leveraged alongside physicians and other clinical team members, whether working in-person or innovatively supported at the bedside by a virtual extended team. We’re also committed to creating the right support systems to help ensure nurses can practice at the top of their license, aided by technology, including AI, to streamline workflows and enhance their ability to provide exceptional patient care. Strong communication skills and adaptability will be key, and we’ll continue to foster a culture where every team member’s voice is valued. What will fade is hierarchy and rigid rules about what each team member should be doing. Everyone will work within the scope of their license and all will have an equal voice on the team according to their expertise.
Patti Cuartas, DMSc, PA-C, MBA, PMP, FACHE, ACHIP. Executive Director and Associate Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Mount Sinai Health System: The world of interoperability is evolving which means that our teams need to evolve as well from data transfer facilitators to strategic enablers of intelligent, secure and collaborative healthcare ecosystems. Over the next two years, our teams will take on expanded roles working more closely with clinical and operational stakeholders to enable more real time and actionable insights across systems, shifting the focus from transport of data to meaningful use of data. We are currently developing and co-designing workflows with our frontline users and our clinical informatics team members as interoperability becomes a core component of clinical operations.
Our teams are also evolving to focus more on data governance, privacy and automation of routine interoperability tasks, data validation and error queue management – which translate into roles and skills that have a strong emphasis on product thinking, agile delivery and communication, in addition to continued adoption of data standards such as USCDI and IHE profiles and services and products such as FHIR and APIs.
Brian Patterson, MD, MPH. Physician Administrative Director for Clinical AI at UW Health: Over the next two years, our teams will need to evolve from a primary emphasis on technical development toward a more integrated focus on workflow integration and operational execution. As AI capabilities mature, the central challenge has shifted from building novel tools to ensuring their sustainable integration into clinical workflows. To meet this need, we’ll not necessarily need to change roles on our AI team but will need to really concentrate on our points of integration with operational leadership and informatics in the health systems. Technical specialization will still provide value but will no longer be sufficient in isolation.
Marcus Speaker, MD. Associate Chief Medical Information Officer at Carilion Clinic: Over the next two years, our health IT team will continue our transition from maintaining the Epic EHR to becoming proactive partners in enhancing clinician well-being. We are placing a strong emphasis on roles that blend clinical expertise with digital and data skills. Team members who can help integrate AI into clinical workflows to streamline care will be pivotal while tasks like manual data entry or basic system configuration will start to fade away through automation.
By embedding emerging AI tools, such as ambient documentation assistants and predictive analytics, directly into our workflows, we aim to offload tedious chores and provide users with more time to spend with patients. This shift will not only improve clinician well-being but can reduce burnout. Simultaneously, we are exploring a more agile team culture capable of adapting to the shifting political and policy landscape. From new interoperability mandates to changes in reimbursement models, we aim to quickly align our health IT priorities with evolving healthcare policies without losing focus on patient care.
