As healthcare leaders think about the future of their organizations, they must remember that despite the seemingly nonstop attention lavished on technology today what’s down the road will be determined by much more. It will depend on health systems using new tools and care models to make care more accessible, affordable and preventative.
At the 2026 Beckers Annual Meeting, panelists from some of the country's largest and most influential healthcare systems discussed the future of healthcare. The panel included physician leaders from Lee Health, Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group, Northwest Permanente, Sanford Health, Southern California Permanente Medical Group, The Permanente Medical Group and The Southeast Permanente Medical Group. Each health system is part of the AMA Health System Member Program, which provides enterprise solutions to equip leadership, physicians and care teams with resources to help drive the future of medicine.
Their message was clear: Progress will require rethinking care delivery, leadership and physician support. Each physician leader attested that technology alone will not solve healthcare's biggest challenges. Success will depend on strong leadership relentlessly focused on patient needs while adopting technology that improves access, reach and patient-physician relationships.
Focus on value, not volume
According to Maria Ansari, MD, the future of healthcare will not be driven by more visits, procedures or technology. Instead, it will be measured by how health systems improve outcomes, expand access and lower costs. Technology is simply a means to those ends.
“We view ourselves as the original disruptor of healthcare because we have this vertically and horizontally integrated care system where everything is under one roof and incentives are aligned with the patient,” said Dr. Ansari, co-CEO of The Permanente Federation, the leadership and consulting organization for Permanente Medical Groups. She is also chief executive officer and executive director of The Permanente Medical Group, president and CEO of Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group, and CEO of Northwest Permanente.
“That's very different from most other models of healthcare,” she continued. “We're used to constantly challenging the status quo and doing things differently.”
In alignment with that, Kaiser Permanente’s technology strategy is based on using digital tools to give patients more control over their care. Virtual urgent care, algorithm-driven services and predictive analytics are designed to help physicians and care teams identify conditions and, when needed, intervene earlier.
“We're using technology to move care upstream to predict who's likely to be hospitalized, needs social support or has other issues that might drive them to the ED,” Dr. Ansari explained. “We can connect those patients to community resources, wraparound social work support and other services that may prevent hospitalization.”
Even as augmented intelligence (AI), automation and digital tools become more integrated into care, it must be remembered that healthcare is a fundamentally human enterprise that depends on trust, relationships and connections. The organizations most likely to succeed will be those that use technology that focuses on delivering better outcomes that support patient confidence.
“As we do that, we have to stay anchored to our purpose,” Dr. Ansari said. “We have to remember that hands-on care, humanity, relatedness and trust matter.”
Make AI augment physicians
AI will not replace physicians and care teams. Instead, it should elevate their capabilities, according to Ramin Davidoff, MD, co-CEO, of The Permanente Federation. Dr. Davidoff is also executive medical director and board chair of Southern California Permanente Medical Group, board chair and CEO of The Southeast Permanente Medical Group, and board chair and CEO of Hawaii Permanente Medical Group.
Over the next five years or so, Dr. Davidoff predicts that a new executive role will emerge: the chief human AI collaboration officer.
“There needs to be a connection made that uses data and information in a way that augments the work of our clinicians and physicians, not replaces it,” he explained. The challenge will be linking data, technology and human judgment so physicians can make better decisions while preserving the trust, experience and expertise that patients expect.”
This role would not replace existing executive leaders, but would help organizations connect clinical expertise, operational priorities and AI-enabled insights.
The CFO role offers one example of how leadership responsibilities may evolve as automation takes on more information-intensive functions, such as financial modeling and operational reporting, will give leaders more time to focus on how to apply that information strategically.
“We will always need a CFO,” he said. “But that CFO's expertise will need to drive the use of that information to complement clinical care and improve patient outcomes.”
He cited clinical decision support tools, operational automation, AI scribes, EHR enhancements and automated communication of normal lab results as examples of technology that improve efficiency without adding work for clinicians or staff.
In other words, the future of healthcare will depend less on simple access to AI and more on how it is deployed. As workforce shortages, financial pressures and patient expectations grow, organizations that use AI to bolster human experience and improve care delivery will create more sustainable and successful systems.
Build AI into the work
Tommy Ibrahim, MD, executive vice president and chief transformation officer for Sanford Health, believes the future of healthcare leadership will require a fundamental shift in how organizations think about innovation.
“We need to become ‘AI-native’ organizations going forward,” Dr. Ibrahim said. “It really needs to be part of the culture, the competency and the agenda on a day-to-day basis.”
That shift will become increasingly important as AI becomes integrated into everyday operations. Innovation can no longer be treated as a side project or the responsibility of a single department.
“What I'd like to see is every member of the C-suite assume a role in innovation and transformation,” he said. AI, data literacy and change management will become core leadership competencies rather than areas of specialized expertise. The goal being to create organizations in which transformation is embedded in daily decision-making and operational strategy rather than seen and treated as separate initiatives.
“We need to create an internal climate of comfort and resilience around that,” Dr. Ibrahim said. “We can bring the technology and the best practices in the industry to drive the solutions we're looking for and solve key problems across the organization. Those are what we need to take the organization to the next level.”
At Sanford Health, that philosophy has translated into a strong focus on building the infrastructure necessary to support long-term transformation. That includes strengthening the organization's data layer, establishing governance structures, creating a culture of innovation and transformation and taking what he describes as a “problem-first approach” to prioritization.
Rather than pursuing technology for its own sake, Sanford Health identifies its biggest operational and clinical challenges and then determines which tools and strategies are most likely to solve them.
Ultimately, the future is not about creating a single chief innovation officer or assigning transformation to one department. It is about making innovation a shared leadership skill and embedding it into the culture, competencies and daily operations of the entire organization.
“I may be talking myself out of a job here, but that's OK,” Dr. Ibrahim joked. “But that's the direction we need to move to get healthcare where it needs to go long term.”
Do not automate broken systems
Nolan Chang, MD, sees tremendous potential in emerging technologies but, he cautions, leaders should focus less on technology itself and more on the outcomes it enables.
“Technology really is a tool. But the innovation won't be the technology itself, but what it unlocks,” said Dr. Chang, executive vice president of Strategy, Corporate Development, and Finance for The Permanente Federation, and regional medical director for business management at Southern California Permanente Medical Group.
That perspective shapes his own thoughts about AI.
“The word ‘artificial’ itself sounds scary,” he said. AI should, “augment what people are doing through human intelligence instead of artificial intelligence.”
It should help people do their jobs better and make them more meaningful, especially as technology allows organizations to process information more effectively, connect patients to their health data and create stronger relationships with their care teams. However, Dr. Chang expressed concerns about using AI to navigate, subvert or exploit inefficiencies in current systems rather than improving them.
“For instance, I hear people at other delivery systems saying, ‘I'm going to use AI to try and bypass prior authorizations,’” he noted. But such “shortcuts” demonstrate the dangers of applying powerful new tools to tweak broken processes without addressing the underlying issues that make the processes problematic in the first place.
“In the meantime, tech companies get rich while patients get caught in the middle,” Dr. Chang said.
He also believes that healthcare leaders must think beyond hospitals, clinics and physician offices when designing healthcare for the future, especially as an aging population makes chronic diseases more common.
“We are fooling ourselves if we think that those problems can be solved within the four walls of healthcare,” Dr. Chang said. “It's really about how we're going to partner differently and how we identify opportunities to make the day-to-day easier for patients without seeing the doctor.”
Solve the problem first
How to avoid the common trap of adopting tools that generate excitement but fail to deliver meaningful value? For Nariman Heshmati, MD, chief physician and operations executive at Lee Health, it begins with a simple question: What problem are we trying to solve?
“I don't go finding solutions and then find places to use them,” he said. “We first identify what our problem is and then we look for the solution.”
Dr. Heshmati meets regularly with physicians and frontline staff, then the chief medical information officer and technology leaders to discuss issues they raised. Those conversations identify where and how technology might have the greatest impact. But before making a commitment he wants evidence of demonstrable, measurable value.
“It's got to have a real return,” he said. “Whether that’s in terms of patient or clinician experiences, or just the economics of it.”
Even promising technologies require that organizations consider real practicalities. Contract terms can decide whether a deal moves forward, for instance, as can the realities of deploying new tools system-wide.
“Before we put something out en masse, we pilot it in a smaller area or subdivision,” Dr. Heshmati explained. “That way, if something breaks, it doesn't break everywhere,” which is an approach that allows teams to spot problems early, gather feedback and refine solutions before broader implementation.
For Dr. Heshmati, successful innovation also requires realistic expectations. New technologies will occasionally fail, produce imperfect results or require multiple rounds of refinement. The goal, however, is not perfection but improving systems with existing inefficiencies, inconsistencies and limitations. Healthcare leaders who are willing to test, learn and iterate will be better positioned to capture the benefits of emerging technologies while minimizing risk.
“It doesn't have to be perfect because the current system isn't perfect,” Dr. Heshmati added. “Our baseline has to be our current performance.”
The future of healthcare may be shaped by AI, automation and new care models. But the throughline from these physician leaders is clear: Technology should not be used to preserve the status quo. It should help health systems move toward care that is more proactive, more connected and more sustainable for the physicians and other health professionals delivering it.
