Beyond the EHR
The first wave of healthcare digitalization was about electronic health records. A necessary foundation, but one that consumed enormous capital and organizational energy while delivering limited clinical value and significant physician burnout. Now comes the harder, more valuable work: transforming how care is delivered, coordinated, and experienced.
The healthcare organizations leading this second wave share a common orientation: they are using technology to augment clinical judgment rather than replace it, to reduce friction in the care journey rather than add to it.
Clinical AI: The 30,000-foot View
Clinical AI is real, it is delivering value, and it is still in early innings. The highest-value applications today are in areas where AI augments clinical decision-making with data synthesis at a scale impossible for humans: radiology image analysis, sepsis early warning, medication reconciliation, and clinical documentation automation.
The honest truth about clinical AI is that model performance is rarely the limiting factor. Integration with clinical workflows, physician trust, regulatory approval, and liability frameworks are the real barriers to adoption.
The Interoperability Imperative
FHIR has moved from emerging standard to regulatory requirement. The US 21st Century Cures Act mandates information blocking prohibitions and standardized API access. Health systems that have not made the investments to support FHIR-compliant data exchange are facing compounding regulatory and competitive risk.
But interoperability is more than compliance. Health systems that have invested in genuine interoperability — real-time care coordination with community partners, bidirectional data exchange with specialists, patient-mediated data sharing — are seeing measurable improvements in care quality and cost metrics.
Dr. Ananya Krishnan
Healthcare Technology Advisor, VBRS