Sarah Hatchett, Cleveland Clinic CIO, says that creating a smart hospital is less about implementing the latest hardware than creating a seamless longitudinal patient journey that starts before hospital admission.

After attending the HIMSS26 AI and cybersecurity preconference forums, Mt. San Rafael's Michael Archuleta and Cyderes' Daniel Spitzer discuss how AI can be used to enhance care delivery and protect against cyberattacks.

AI tools are commonly deployed to improve clinician experience, but Robert Havasy, HIMSS senior director of informatics strategy, says he's interested in how health systems are leveraging AI to assist patients along the care journey.

Karie Ryan, chief nursing officer at Artisight, discusses the company's AI ambient intelligence offerings that combine audio and video, sensors and computer vision to create a smart hospital room for patient safety and workflow efficiency.

UCHealth's Brittany Cyriacks explains how the health system developed a virtual nursing command center enhanced by an AI tool that searches patient records for signs of deterioration and rolled it out to all 15 of its hospitals.

The use of ambient AI scribes enables doctors to be more present during visits, but Dr. Matt Sakumoto, Nabla's chief clinical product officer, says this hasn't necessarily improved patient experience scores.

Clear instructions help ensure medication is taken correctly, and Greg O'Neill, director of patient education at ChristianaCare, says that AI can help make those communications more patient-friendly.

Matching financial incentives to patient outcomes is necessary to getting away from fee-for-service, says Brian Overstreet, CEO of Arbital Health.

Dr. Ami Bhatt, chief innovation officer at the American College of Cardiology, says wearables can spot subtle physiological changes to enable earlier intervention for patients with cardiometabolic disease.

Ambient AI has streamlined documentation, but Hannah Ellerbee, Guidehouse partner, says it can also connect data from patient visits to revenue cycle processes to create a more seamless, data-driven clinician experience.

Microsoft's Kenneth Harper says agentic AI will soon be able to go beyond preparing documentation to surface important data from captured patient-doctor conversations that can enhance clinical decision-making.

Having experienced the healthcare system both as a legislator and a cancer patient, Policy Influencer Changemaker Dianne Primavera, Colorado's lieutenant governor, works to make healthcare more accessible and affordable.