Last week at the ViVE conference in Nashville, Tennessee, two topics seemed to dominate most conversations—artificial intelligence and the impending snowstorm. (Music City got about two inches of snow.)
According to many executives who attended the digital-health-focused conference, AI took the main stage at ViVE, and discussions about adoption and use of the technology in healthcare have evolved significantly in just the past year.
"Many conversations centered around AI agents and sophisticated prompt engineering. Compared to HLTH, where conversations felt more theoretical, vendors and healthcare customers were speaking about concrete use cases. For a while now, healthcare incumbents have had robotic process automation, then intelligent automation and now AI on their road maps. It seems we’ve finally arrived at the final destination, and most are piloting different AI tech now," Neil Patel, Redesign Health's head of ventures, told Fierce Healthcare.
"I’d expect to see some real proof points by this time next year, hopefully sooner," he noted.
"There also was an outsized amount of chatter around ambient scribes—especially with Abridge’s raise announcement—voice AI, robotics and workflow automation," he added.
One big question remains, according to Patel. What does electronic health record behemoth Epic have to say about this?
"From what I heard, some of the large systems seem to believe Epic will roll some of these key features out themselves and are waiting before investing in other enterprisewide tech."
Executives at health systems and provider organizations were interested in drilling down into foundational issues around data quality, security and privacy and governance, many attendees said.
"ViVE was all about AI—not a surprise—but what was new this year were the discussions on every corner of the convention center about governance, scalability and privacy," said Daniel Blumenthal, vice president of strategy at data analytics company MDClone.
"How can organizations leverage data and AI to drive better outcomes, better patient engagement, lower costs and do so at scale, not just as point solutions? It's essential that healthcare organizations look for solutions that have proven technology and governance model, as well as tools such as synthetic data to ensure the protection of patients’ privacy," he said.
AI also is posing new risks to cybersecurity that healthcare organizations need to be prepared for, Patel said, noting that deep fakes, more sophisticated phishing attacks and high volume automated attacks are changing the landscape.
As the market gets crowded with AI-enabled tools, executives also are exercising caution when evaluating vendors and technologies.
"AI was on every single booth, so figuring out what AI means in any given context is now confusing. Thankfully, many people are now acknowledging that LLMs aren’t the right tool for every problem, and the term AI seems to have expanded to pretty much any technology that uses algorithms or functionality to supplement human thinking or action. Many seem to agree that there’s a lot of AI junk coming into the marketplace that could be quite dangerous and inevitably could cause harm," James Aita, director of strategy and business development at Medicomp Systems.
AI is still a highly hyped technology, but the conversation has evolved, acknowledged Nick Orser, general manager of healthcare at Verato.
"People are finally acknowledging that AI agents and models are only as good as the data they rely on, which must be complete, unified and associated with the correct patients, members, consumers and clinicians. People also are no longer interested in digital transformation for the sake of transformation. Health systems and payers want to partner with vendors to build a financial impact narrative to understand the ROI of an investment and how it addresses specific pain points—this has become table stakes, not just a nice-to-have,” Orser said.
"AI was the hot topic at ViVE, with almost every health system making it a top priority, particularly for physician-assisted clinical documentation," John Orosco, CEO of Red Rover Health, said.
Colin Banas, M.D., DrFirst's chief medical officer, noted "important conversations taking place focused on responsible AI and data integrity" during the conference.
Two years after ChatGPT debuted, ViVE 2025 marked the first full "AI ViVE," said George Pappas, CEO of Intraprise Health, as he noted that the vast majority of vendors showcased AI products and highlighted an AI-first innovation mindset.
"This shift is only the beginning, as various LLM-enabled agents and applications continue to simplify complexity for healthcare workers, patients, and organizations. Workflow enhancements, increased productivity, and greater effectiveness are becoming the cornerstones of AI’s impact across the healthcare ecosystem—yet there is still much room for improvement," he said.
What stood out to Kem Graham, vice president of growth and strategy at CliniComp, was the "sophisticated level of discourse" around practical innovation, with many organizations "actively seeking solutions that put patients first while supporting their clinical teams."
"The focus on meaningful partnerships and collaborative approaches to leveraging AI showed that we're moving beyond theoretical discussions to real-world implementation. It's clear that the industry is aligned on the need to enhance care delivery through thoughtful technology adoption that serves all communities," she said.
The current political landscape also is impacting conversations about the use of AI in healthcare operations, according to some executives.
"CIOs came to our exhibit booth at ViVE eager to explore AI’s role in transforming healthcare operations. Their excitement, however, was tempered by a growing concern—what happens if or when DOGE infiltrates healthcare? To get ahead of it, they’re shifting their focus from clinical AI to AI-driven power tools for cost reduction and waste elimination," noted Philipp von Gilsa, CEO and co-founder of Kontakt.io, a company that provides AI-powered real-time location systems for care operations.
"The greatest potential lies in hospital operations, resource utilization, and workflow automation, where AI can cut inefficiencies and optimize capacity—all without the high-stakes risks of clinical decision-making," von Gilsa said.
Many health systems and hospitals have already adopted ambient listening and other generative AI tools for clinical documentation.
"The next step will be taking such capabilities a step further by automatically teeing up medication orders or prescriptions for approval in the existing workflow, based on the notes," Virginia Halsey, senior vice president of strategy and product management at FDB (First Databank).
"It’s these small automations—charting, order creation, routine communication—that are not life-changing individually, but are beginning to add up to a profoundly more streamlined experience for clinicians and for patients who receive more of their provider’s undivided attention," she noted.
Andrew Gostine, M.D., CEO and co-founder of Artisight, an AI-driven smart hospital platform, said ViVE 2025 presented a "solid slate of speakers exploring the transformative potential of AI in healthcare with topics ranging from new AI capabilities to AI safety and emerging regulations."
"Interoperability remains a mess"
Another big takeaway from the conference? Interoperability continues to be a thorny problem in healthcare.
"Interoperability remains a mess, with big vendors still not sharing data despite claiming to," Medicomp Systems' Aita said. "There’s a lot of interest and focus on making interoperability work, but big challenges remain, such as data standards being too wide open to interpretation, identity problems, data quality issues, business model sustainability and overall usability. Given the landscape, there are plenty of opportunities to solve marketplace problems, but the government must play a role to help on many fronts."
Orosco also said interoperability continues to progress at a frustratingly slow pace.
"Despite the promise of FHIR and existing standards, inconsistent implementation continues to create hurdles for vendors and health systems alike. More than a decade after FHIR was introduced, progress has been made, but there’s still a long road ahead to achieving seamless data exchange," he said.
To be noted, many comments about the industry's slow progress on interoperability came from executives whose companies focus on improving data integration and data sharing.
Banas also walked away from ViVE with a sense that interoperability was a major focus, "especially for innovative prior authorization automation and broader data access," he said.
Where some see slow advances with interoperability and data exchange, others see marked progress and opportunities.
'Healthcare is fast approaching a real tipping point with data usage," said Kevin Ritter, executive vice president of CareinMotion, part of Altera Digital Health. "In this next evolution, providers and payers can leverage discrete data from disparate sources to support greater use of AI and advanced analytics. A more open ecosystem will also enable organizations to glean insights about patients and members from data sources that have been historically hard to tap into. Solving the last mile—getting the right data to the appropriate caregiver at the right time—is still a work in progress."
Ryne Natzke, chief revenue officer at TrustCommerce, a company that provides financial technologies to health systems, contends that as data sharing and interoperability improve, providers have implemented more digital tools for patients and clinicians.
"Providers are now finding that some solutions provide a disjointed experience, so they are looking at things more holistically and trying to make experiences more seamless for their patients and staff," he said.
Natske predicts one of the next waves of innovation will go beyond data sharing and focus more on a better front-end experience for users.
Lathe Bigler, vice president of clinical network services and general manager at FDB Vela, also heard a lot of talk about drug pricing, consumer choice and medication adherence on the ViVE show floor. Drug and cost information and choice are foundational elements of a medication adherence strategy, he noted.
"Today, when the required data is readily available and patient demand is high, there is no reasonable answer to why healthcare entities controlling the data access cannot deliver it directly to consumers in a meaningful and easily understandable way," Bigler said. Consumers increasingly want real-time prescription benefit and cost information, he noted.
"The buzz around this consumer-driven trend will continue long after the conference has wrapped. E-prescribing will emerge as one of the most active and innovative areas in the healthcare industry that will have a direct positive impact on consumer experience and medication adherence," Bigler said.
Next week, vendors and healthcare executives will flock to Las Vegas for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference. How will conversations about AI and interoperability at HIMSS compare to those at ViVE? Check back next week to find out.