Announced at HIMSS25, the partnership between the New York health system and Amazon enables patients to confirm their identity in seconds.
NYU Langone Health is launching a new biometric technology platform that’s designed to enable patient registrations through a palm scan.
Announced during the first day of the HIMSS25 conference and exhibition in Las Vegas, the New York health system is partnering with Amazon to launch the Amazon One tool through the Epic EHR platform. The technology enables patients to confirm their identity through a palm scan, which is reportedly more than 99% accurate, less intrusive than other forms of identity verification, and takes place in seconds.
"One of NYU Langone’s goals is to leverage cutting-edge technology to enhance the patient experience,” Nader Mherabi, EVP, Vice Dean and Chief Digital and Information Officer at NYU Langone, said in a press release. “We make all decisions with our patients in mind first and foremost, and we’re always looking for ways to improve their experience through technology. As with all new initiatives and technology of this scale, we will optimize over time and meet the needs of our patients.”
As HIMSS kicks into gear this week, announcements like this are indicative of an industry striving to use innovative technology to improve the patient experience. Health systems and hospitals are under pressure to not only improve clinical outcomes and cut costs, but also make the patient’s care journey more intuitive.
The registration process is a key pain point in healthcare, and health system leaders are looking for ways to reduce the questionnaires and paperwork that make the process longer and more cumbersome, thereby reducing the time a patient can actually spend with their care team.
The partnership takes advantage of a technology now being used in airports, sports stadiums, convenience stores and fitness centers, and marks Amazon One’s largest third-party healthcare deployment to date. It’s also an example of the healthcare industry looking to other industries for innovative ways to solve nagging problems.
According to executives, the Amazon One platform accesses the EHR only to confirm the patient’s identity, and does not access or store any other patient data. Patients are asked to create an Amazon One profile ahead of their visit and link that profile to NYU Langone.
NYU Langone expects to roll out the technology to all locations within the year.
The frontier of clinical AI isn't just emerging—it's exploding, reshaping the very fabric of healthcare with both exhilarating promise and perilous uncertainty.
Picture a landscape as uncharted and volatile as the Wild West, where the stakes are nothing less than patient lives, clinical integrity, and the future of medical practice. Here, algorithms are the new outlaws and innovators, disrupting traditional workflows, challenging the sanctity of clinical decision-making, and daring to redefine the doctor-patient dynamic.
While AI has comfortably nestled into administrative corners, trimming inefficiencies and enhancing operational flow, its march into clinical territories is met with a starkly different reality. This isn’t about automating paperwork; it’s about influencing diagnoses, treatment plans, and even patient trust. What happens when AI crosses the line from assistant to authority? When it prescribes medication or becomes the voice patients heed over their own physicians?
The HealthLeaders 2024 AI in Clinical Care Mastermind program, sponsored by Ambience, Microsoft, and Rapid AI, convened clinical trailblazers from 10 health systems to grapple with these very questions. Their candid discussions reveal not just early victories in radiology and patient communication, but also the raw, unvarnished struggles: navigating governance without stifling innovation, integrating AI without alienating clinicians, and chasing ROI amidst ethical gray zones.
This report distills their hard-won insights, offering a compass for healthcare leaders navigating their own AI frontiers. Here, you'll find not just lessons learned, but survival strategies for thriving in an era where clinical AI isn’t a distant future—it’s the reality unfolding in exam rooms, operating theaters, and patient portals today.
Today's healthcare challenges call for a deeper dive into complexity, and that requires collaboration between leaders in innovation and the rest of the c-suite.
All growth in healthcare will march along the path of digital technology. But how that technology is being brought into the clinical, financial and strategic enterprise of current health systems requires a deeper connection between information leaders and their counterparts in the healthcare C-Suite.
To fill that gap of information and collaboration among leaders, the HealthLeaders Exchange has announced the first annual Chief Digital Executive Exchange, which will bring together 25 of the nation’s top digital and information officers to reset the path toward digital transformation alongside panels built with their counterparts in clinical, financial, and executive leadership.
The HealthLeaders Chief Digital Executive Exchange will join the broader HealthLeaders Exchange network, featuring ongoing C-level communities of hospital, health system and medical group practice chief executive officers, chief financial officers, chief nursing officers and chief medical officers.
The HealthLeaders Chief Digital Executive Exchange will culminate at the first annual live forum Dec. 4-5 at Le Meridien in Washington, D.C.
Jim Molpus, Vice President of Content and Communities for HealthLeaders Media, says the addition of digital officers completes a circle for the Exchange program.
“Our CEO, CFO, CNO and CMO Exchange groups all have the exact same ‘ask’ of digital technology: Do more to improve real outcomes and lower costs,” Molpus says.
The HealthLeaders Chief Digital Executive Exchange will have a unique format. The community of digital executives will have the benefits of a true peer network to share ideas and best practices among themselves, with the added benefit of CEOs, CFOs, CNOs and CMOs from the larger Exchange community brought in on topics where they share common goals.
“We spoke with several digital leaders who told us that the challenges they face today require a much deeper dive into complexity, and with the other C-level stakeholders also at the table. We feel like the HealthLeaders Exchange community is in a unique position to fill that gap in industry dialogue.”
In 2025, the key topics will center on how digital technology can be most effective in transforming clinical outcomes, access, financial/operational efficiency, AI and overall growth and market strategy. The HealthLeaders Exchange team and HealthLeaders Media Senior Technology Editor Eric Wicklund will be recruiting panelists for the program.
Healthcare leaders may still be looking for ROI and sustainability, but they know AI is here to stay, and they want to make sure they’re on the right path.
Healthcare execs say the hype around AI is justified, but amid all the grand proclamations and catchy metaphors, they’re still trying to figure out where the technology will fit into the clinical workflow.
“We’ve seen the hype but not a lot of substance,” said Nasim Eftekhari, Executive Director of Applied AI & Data Science at City of Hope, who attended the recent ViVE 2025 event and took part in a panel on AI innovation.
Indeed, one of the bigger takeaways from ViVE was that AI is still all the rage, but for all the pilot programs and early use cases, value is still hard to find in clinical care. While rev cycle and financial departments are seeing wins in reduced administrative tasks and better number crunching, clinical leaders are still trying to figure out how to integrate AI into care pathways.
And for every health system and hospital finding success in ambient AI for doctors or in-basket messaging, someone else isn’t seeing the value. If you’ve seen one successful use case, the old saying goes, you’ve seen one successful use case.
Yet with HIMSS 2025 opening this week, healthcare leaders are once again eager to talk about AI. And they’re pretty much agreed that this technology will affect the industry in serious and substantial ways.
“There’s a lot of AI in everything,” said Simon Nazarian, City of Hope’s System EVP and Chief Digital and Technology Officer, who also spoke at ViVE. “But a lot of it is just good old-fashioned automation.”
So where is that next step? And do we really need an a-ha moment to push things forward?
Technology and clinical care have a complicated history, as veterans of the EMR era and “meaningful use” will attest. With those memories to draw from, executives are tentative in fully embracing AI and really want to see what it can do before making a commitment.
That’s nothing new, and it isn’t scaring execs away from using AI. The agenda for this week’s HIMSS 25 conference and exhibition in sunny (hopefully) Las Vegas is filled with discussions about AI and examples of health systems putting the technology to the test.
For many, the catchword now is governance. It’s understood that AI, particularly the generative and predictive models, evolves as it gathers more data. That means healthcare leaders have to monitor not only how they gather and feed data into the machine, but keep an eye on what comes out the other end.
For John Halamka, MD, MS, president of the Mayo Clinic Platform, AI “will be in everything we do.” Speaking at ViVE, he said Mayo is testing several generative AI models, all designed to augment clinical care rather than replace the clinician.
Halamka said health systems and hospitals can launch all the AI tools they want, but they’d better understand the consequences.
“You can move fast and break things as long as you understand the risks of breaking things,” he noted.
That said, Halamka knows AI is transformational. The best endoscopist on the planet will still miss 15% of small polyps, he pointed out, while an AI tool developed at Mayo only misses 3%. And there will come a time, he added, when AI is part of the standard of care, and hospitals could be sued for malpractice for not using it.
It’s just that getting from here to there will take time. And mistakes will be made.
At City of Hope, Eftekhari said AI will save lives. Predictive tools will help clinicians spot health concerns earlier and help them identify the best care pathway.
“With responsible use of AI, we will have the ability to move upstream,” added Nazarian, noting the potential for AI in research to eventually identify and even prevent cancer. “We want to be able to go from bench to bed as quickly as possible.”
So amid all the conversations at HIMSS this week about how AI is being tested or used, executives should understand that whatever they see and hear about won’t necessarily work for them. The stories they hear from one conference to the next will likely be the same. They need to mold the technology to their particular goals.
Halamka says the industry also needs to see both the victories and the failures, and to learn from each. He expects progress to be slow and steady, and the hype to continue until the use cases are proven out.
During these uncertain times, health systems won't embrace new technology unless there's a firm understanding of ROI attached. Here's how to find it.
When it comes to new technology, healthcare leaders need a good, sound business plan to move forward.
This is especially true with virtual care, which was the sweetheart of the rodeo during the pandemic, when providers needed to reduce pressure on hospitals and patients wanted to access care from home. Federal and state regulators even reduced telehealth restrictions to allow more access, and payers like CMS relaxed their rules to reimburse for more virtual care services.
But now that the pandemic has passed, the pendulum has swung back. Many COVID-era waivers have expired, patients are expressing a desire to see their doctors in person, and healthcare executives are tasked with revising or even redefining how virtual care services can be sustained and scaled.
So how do health systems and hospitals define the ROI of a telehealth platform or digital health tool in this day and age? Clinical outcomes, provider workflows and workforce shortages are all part of the recipe, but there also has to be a financial benefit. Can all of these interests co-exist in a business plan?
In this webinar, HealthLeaders takes a deep dive into this issue with David Higginson, EVP and Chief Innovation Officer at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, and Stephen Hunter, VP of Digital Strategy and Innovation for the Allegheny Health Network, part of Highmark Health.
At nine years old, following a major car accident, Paul recalls the nurse who helped her understand what was happening to her family. It was that emergency department nurse who inspired Paul to go on to become a nurse, and now, a nurse leader.
Paul earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Kent State University and her Master of Science in Nursing from Walden University. Paul then served at Mercy Health St. Rita’s Medical Center in leadership roles and as a frontline nurse in the emergency department.
During the last 11 years, she has served as an acute care and operations director in Mercy Health’s Springfield market, and as patient services operations and ROC director in Mercy Health’s Lima market. Most recently, Paul served as the assistant chief nursing officer for Mercy Health – Springfield Regional Medical Center.
In August 2024, Paul stepped into the CNO role for the Mercy Health Lima Market, where she is responsible for overseeing the delivery of nursing operations for the market, which includes oversight of bedside care, nursing quality, and nursing practices for Mercy Health Lima.
On our latest installment of The Exec, HealthLeaders sat down with Paul to discuss her journey into nursing, and her thoughts on trends in the nursing industry. Tune in to hear her insights.
In HealthLeaders' latest Winning Edge webinar, Stephen Hunter of Allegheny Health and David Higginson of Phoenix Children's Hospital detailed their strategies for developing a virtual care platform that can hold its value.
Virtual care may be an integral part of the so-called "hospital of the future," but that doesn't mean health systems and hospitals can just throw together any old tech platform and see it work. If you build it, they won't necessarily come.
Like any new idea or technology, virtual care needs a sound business plan.
During Tuesday's Winning Edge webinar, two healthcare innovation executives from two very different health systems explained in detail how they've made virtual care work for them and their patients.
For David Higginson, EVP and Chief Innovation Officer at Phoenix Children's Hospital, the challenge lay in creating a sustainable telehealth platform that would meet the needs of their pediatric patients and families, improving clinical outcomes and long-term care concerns. For Stephen Hunter, VP of Digital Strategy and Innovation at the Allegheny Health Network, part of Highmark Health, a virtual care platform had to address immediate care needs for patients while creating a sound business model for the both the health system's population and community health plans and the affiliated health plan's members.
In describing their strategies and challenges, Higginson and Hunter outlined four considerations that every healthcare leader should address when developing a business plan for virtual care that is both sustainable and scalable.
Don't Fall for the Shiny New Thing. While the COVID-19 pandemic proved the value of virtual care, an even more important lesson learned for many health systems was that the biggest, flashiest technology solution isn't always the best. Many providers were setting up simple, easy-to-use telehealth platforms on their own, using the most basic technology, and making them work.
Higginson noted that Phoenix Children's set up a platform using a Zoom API in about three weeks, at a cost of about $12,000. And while that won't likely work for most health systems eyeing a long-term program, it proves that the "flavor of the month" isn't right for everyone. Healthcare leaders need to test out all the technology they can find, keeping an open mind and looking for what works for them.
Selecting the right technology also means looking at the long term. A tool or platform might be good for now, but will it still provide ROI in five years or be rendered obsolete by newer, better technologies? Will a health system become mired in chasing the next big thing or investing in upgrades that dilute or even destroy ROI?
The important strategy here is to be adaptable and flexible. Explore all the options, and understand that sometimes the simplest technology is the best. Plan on upgrades, but don't think that every new thing has to be added to the platform.
Begin With the Patient, and End With the Provider. A virtual care platform might have a great business plan, work like a charm for doctors and nurses and bring a smile to the CFO, but if it doesn't meet the patient's needs, it's toast. That's why it's crucial to begin with the patient's perspective.
Both Higginson and Hunter say a tech platform has to begin with a clear understanding of the problem that needs to be solved, and that means understanding what virtual care means to the patient. The technology has to be easy and intuitive for patients, allowing them to access care and services from their homes. If a provider needs to spend a long time explaining to patients how the technology works, chances of adoption are low.
It's also important to make sure everyone involved in the new program, from doctors and nurses on to pharmacists and HIT staff, knows about all the features and capabilities. Sometimes a great new tool, such as online scheduling of medication refills, is wasted because staff don't realize it's there and they don't tell patients that it's available.
Finally, Hunter noted that patients usually want to be connected to their doctor, not just any doctor on the platform. It's important to set up the platform so that doctors are working with their patients on a continuous care journey (a key component of the business plan is that this relationship captures downstream care opportunities). Don't just connect any patient to any doctor and expect everyone to be happy.
Part of that process is messaging. Providers need to set up a routine that allows patients to send messages to their doctors and create a strategy to triage incoming messages so that doctors and/or nurses answer what needs to be answered.
It should not go unsaid that a platform needs to be seamless and stress-free for the provider as well as the patient. If your adding new tasks or steps to an already-stressed-out doctor or nurse, you might have a hard time getting them to buy in.
Balance Clinical and Financial ROI. Sustainability is a tricky mixture of hard and soft ROI. A great virtual care platform that addresses clinical needs won't survive if it costs a lot of money. At Allegheny Health, Hunter noted that a virtual care platform can address the health system's business needs to expand its patient base and pull in downstream services, like follow-ups and health and wellness services, all of which attract the attention of the health system's associated health plan.
Higginson pointed out that gathering patient stories and anecdotes can be beneficial in more ways than one. They reinforce the health system's mission, prove that virtual care is improving access to care and helping patients and their families, and can be used to prod payers and politicians to support the program. A few good stories could convince a senator or representative to take a closer look at how the state is legislating virtual care or reimbursement, two key barriers to telehealth adoption.
The biggest point to be made here is that ROI is a multi-faceted strategy. Immediate cost and value need to be balanced against long-term costs and benefits. The money spent on technology and staffing may very well be made back in long-term clinical benefits, such as reduced ER visits and hospitalizations, happier patients and less-stressed doctors and nurses. At the same time, a telehealth program that requires continuing tech upgrades so that it won't become obsolete in five years is a bad investment.
Expect to Be Surprised. Few programs work out the way they were planned, and virtual care is certainly no exception. It's OK, even imperative, to have a comprehensive strategy that maps out everything that could happen, right or wrong. Prepare for any eventuality, and then be prepared to be surprised.
For example, Hunter said Allegheny Health had expected that its virtual care platform would see success in addressing access issues in rural areas, but found that urban residents were using the platform much more frequently to access care that they had a hard time finding. Higginson, meanwhile, said Phoenix Children's didn't think much about adding a button to its portal to allow patients to request refills, then saw how much that button meant to patients and their families.
The upshot is that things sometimes work whether we plan that way or not, and it's crucial for healthcare leaders to be prepared for that flexibility. That may mean shelving one virtual care platform and trying out another, or accepting failure and moving on quickly. It may also mean ditching assumptions or preconceived ideas about a technology or strategy and letting something play out a little bit to find its way.
Professional practice models enable health systems to elevate nursing education, practice, and outcomes, says this CNE.
Organizations often have to endure cultural shifts as well as workforce changes, so it's critical that CNOs are able to guide nurses and provide resources to help them adjust accordingly.
Stefanie Beavers, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, chief nurse executive at OU Health, and HealthLeaders Exchange member, recognized the need for resources during OU Health's cultural transformation, which occurred as the organization leaned into its identity as an academic health system.
"I learned very quickly as we walked through, what are the resources for our teams?" Beavers said. "How do we organize within the nursing workforce from the lens of nursing excellence, and what's the definition of nursing excellence?"
The solution, for Beavers, was a professional practice model.
The HealthLeaders Exchange is an executive community for sharing ideas, solutions, and insights. Please join the community at our LinkedIn page.
The 'future' of virtual nursing is here, and nurse leaders must prepare for the next evolution.
Healthcare is constantly changing as new waves of innovation become harder and harder to keep up with. While many health systems are already far along on their virtual nursing journeys, many are still just testing the waters.
Virtual nursing enables health systems to uplift the nursing practice in ways that, until now, were not possible. The invention and integration of virtual care technology gives time back to bedside nurses by removing administrative burdens and streamlining admissions and discharges.
Virtual nurses can take on documentation and spend uninterrupted time with patients, while bedside nurses spend more hands-on time caring for them. Virtual nursing also gives nurses flexible scheduling options, which can be especially beneficial to nurses who have physical limitations or who are burnt out and need a break.
Progress so far
Virtual nursing has come a long way since its inception, and its takeoff in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many health systems started with the "quick and dirty" approach, with just a few iPads and carts, or whatever they had available at the time. Nowadays, many systems are fully outfitted with complete audio and video setups, with integrated built-in cameras and permanent TV monitors.
Steve Klahn, system clinical director for virtual medicine at Houston Methodist, previously told HealthLeaders that within the next five to 10 years, 60% to 70% of nursing positions across the industry will likely become virtual or have a virtual component.
"I'd say well over half," Klahn said, "just with [the] massive growth and expansion over the last two years."
Klahn explained that this is largely due to the response to virtual nursing programs.
"This is going to stick with us for a while," Klahn said, "understandably so, because there's such positive response to programs that are engaging a virtual component or fully virtual."
However, not all health systems have the same bandwidth for investment in virtual nursing. Smaller hospitals and rural health systems often have budget limitations that can make implementing new technologies more difficult.
CNOs and other nurse leaders have an important opportunity to brainstorm ways for health systems with those limitations to implement virtual nursing so that their patients and staff can see the same benefits.
What comes next?
As the nursing workforce continues to evolve, health systems must try and keep up with the latest technological trends to keep patient care innovative and efficient. Virtual nursing offers health systems a way to bridge staffing gaps and bring care workflows to the next level.
The next webinar in our Winning Edge series will explore what additional technologies can be integrated into your virtual nursing program, and how to optimize it to best support the bedside nurse and be cost effective.
AI allows health systems to coordinate technology and improve care delivery, says this CNE.
On this episode of HL Shorts, we hear from Betty Jo Rocchio, chief nurse executive at Advocate Health, about how AI will continue to impact the nursing industry. Tune in to hear her insights.
