For an industry that tends to be methodical and strategic about change — or painfully slow, depending on your perspective — this past year was not just a year of incremental change but an era of institutional disruption where digital resilience was tested daily. With the unprecedented rapid transformation fueled by the emergence and adoption of AI, disruptions weren’t just technical glitches, they were sustained stress tests involving record-breaking ransomware and sudden governmental policy reversals, among other challenges.
The healthcare industry shed its reputation for slow adoption and emerged as a leader in AI implementation, more than twice the rate of other industries. Organizations saw some quick wins and efficiencies but also discovered vulnerabilities.
Our editors have summarized 2025 and the most significant developments affecting healthcare leaders and tech executives. We hope you will join us in this year-in-review look and read the in-depth articles to help prepare for how to approach 2026.
Artificial Intelligence: Beyond Time Magazine’s Person of the Year
Merriam-Webster’s word of the year should have been artificial intelligence (AI)—at least for the healthcare industry. As we said before, healthcare’s adoption of AI this past year outpaced other industries with tools like ambient scribing, with $1.4 billion investment overall. Organizations reported efficiencies using AI scribing, but clinicians had mixed reviews, some saying time saved as minimal while technical issues like interoperability and hallucinations indicate there is still work to do before AI’s full potential can be reached.
Legacy systems, problems with interoperability and privacy concerns remain, and high costs slow scaling beyond pilot programs, as organizations deep dive into governance. At the same time, a core concern of accountability led to evolving policies, with the HTI rules for interoperability, executive orders on AI leadership.
Read 2025 Year in Review: Health Systems Sought to Prioritize Artificial Intelligence Use Cases to see if this year’s AI adoption lived up to the hype and learn how the industry is navigating the “Peak of Inflated Expectations.”
Cybersecurity: Moving from Back-Office to the Frontline
In 2025, cybersecurity was redefined as a frontline patient safety issue rather than a standalone IT concern, with more than 75% of healthcare organizations reporting cybersecurity disruptions. Notably, this surge in attacks focused on vendors and supply chain partners, highlighting and exposing weaknesses in interconnected ecosystems.
Phishing scams remained a significant threat thanks to AI-generated emails making it more difficult to distinguish them from legitimate messages. Perhaps one of the most worrying developments was the increase in reported disruptions to patient care that caused delays in procedures, while hospitals were still wrestling with rising labor costs and regulatory scrutiny like the Healthcare Cybersecurity Act.
Read 2025 Year in Review: Healthcare Cybersecurity Enters a High-Stakes Era to understand how cybersecurity affected the industry as a whole.
Interoperability & HIE: Building the Hub-and-Spoke Future
Interoperability and Health Information Exchange (HIE) advanced in 2025 through frameworks such as the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) and standards like the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). However, persistent barriers continue to fragment data sharing, particularly in rural, specialty, and long-term care settings. Legacy systems, uneven adoption and governance gaps limited seamless data exchange and impacted coordination of care.
The success of the One Utah Health Collaborative interoperability pilot launched in 2023 is still considered the leading example of a hub-and-spoke model. This past year saw the project move from pilots to real-world implementation.
Read 2025 Year in Review: HIEs, FHIR Accelerators Make Steady Progress on Data-Sharing Frameworks to see how the Utah project accelerates trust and technical integration and to look forward to the July 2026 deadline of the CMS interoperability pledge.
Value-Based Care: Data Infrastructure as a Survival Tool
Value-based care did not live up to most people’s expectations of making significant strides. Fewer than half of total healthcare payments were tied to value or risk-sharing models, which is close to 2024 rates, with the greatest progress seen in Medicare Advantage and large employer insurance plans.
Success in alternative payment models depends on sophisticated data analytics, especially for safety net providers such as Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). The challenge of building a value-based business case for the C-suite depends on demonstrating ROI over a 1- to 4-year timeline.
Read 2025 Year in Review: Data Infrastructure Key to Success in Value-Based Care to see how organizations like Northwestern Medicine, Risant Health, and others are navigating alternative payment models to find sustainable models.
Policy & Telehealth: Navigating the 43-day Shutdown
Several factors collided to make 2025 a particularly volatile year in healthcare as far as policy. A new administration caused more than the usual shake-ups, with a flurry of executive orders and court decisions indicating significant shifts in priorities. And even with all of those changes, 2025’s policy landscape may be most remembered for the 43-day government shutdown.
Congress displayed an epic battle over the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, causing ripples of uncertainty, while at the same time the One Big Beautiful Bill drove many disruptions and funding cuts.
By 2025, telehealth had been solidified as an essential form of care, as opposed to a temporary solution to the pandemic. However, temporary policy extensions continue to leave uncertainty slowing long-term investment. Advocates continue to push for permanent reforms in 2026, emphasizing equity and value-based care.
Read 2025 Year in Review: Policy Drift Meets Operational Reality in Telehealth and 2025 Year in Review: Political Shifts and Policy Battles to learn how significant policy uncertainty shaped 2025 for healthcare organizations.
Looking Toward 2026
While 2025 shaped up to be a pivotal year in healthcare’s digital evolution, with rapid emergence and adoption of AI, it also highlighted the industry’s fragility with persistent interoperability challenges, policy disruptions, increased cybersecurity threats and uneven progress in value-based care.
The organizations prioritizing governance, security, and aligned incentives proved most resilient. The lessons moving forward are clear. Sustainable transformation demands collaborative policy, robust infrastructure, and a relentless focus on trust and patient-centered outcomes.
As we enter 2026, is your organization nimble enough to withstand the next disruption? Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter and follow us all year for more industry insights.
-Healthcare Innovation Editors
