2025 healthcare tech: Key insights and innovations for success

In the past five years, we have seen major advancements in healthcare technology, primarily fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic’s heightened demand for telehealth, virtual care services, and artificial intelligence. This year’s ViVE conference in Nashville exemplified this evolution, as attendees exchanged their cowboy boots for snow boots to trek into this year’s focus – patient-centered care.

As healthcare delivery models evolve, adopting IT solutions that prioritize the patient experience is essential. By enhancing communication, personalizing care, and improving access to information, we can better support patients’ needs. These advancements promote population health, reduce costs, foster the well-being of healthcare providers, and ensure health equity for all individuals.

Join us as we explore the key hot topics in healthcare technology for 2025 and beyond.

The power of ambient listening

With employee burnout and nursing shortages rising across the entire healthcare community, technology offers a lifeline to ease the burden on clinicians. One tool gaining recent traction is ambient listening, in which an AI-driven program records and summarizes conversations between clinicians and patients. This voice recognition technology enables the physician to stop multitasking and focus fully on the patient. This shift not only strengthens the clinician-patient relationship but also enhances patient satisfaction.

Ambient listening is now integrated seamlessly into the clinical workflow. It enables the automatic collection and real-time analysis of patient data, streamlining clinical documentation, enhancing patient monitoring, and facilitating early detection of potential issues. By reducing the administrative load on healthcare providers, we can create a more efficient system using automatic clinical note generation, real-time updates on patient status, and proactive alerts based on wearable device data.

Seamless integration with cutting-edge solutions

Our dedicated team is ready to support you in seamlessly integrating ambient listening technology with the requisite hardware, including tablets, mobile devices, and carts. We can also help you leverage leading ambient listening solutions like DAX Copilot, an AI-powered productivity tool from Microsoft and Nuance. Tools like this can automate your clinical documentation and significantly enhance your workflows.

Navigating healthcare policy changes

As we look ahead, cybersecurity and policy, particularly the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), remain significant factors shaping healthcare initiatives. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, reports of substantial breaches affecting individuals have surged by 1002% over the past five years. These breaches compromise patient data through ransomware attacks, identity theft, and exposed records. Proposed changes to HIPAA would require healthcare organizations to implement more stringent cyber defenses around health information, strengthening the current Security Rule, a set of standards set by the federal government to protect electronic health information. Key updates would include encryption of all electronic health information, annual security reviews, multi-factor authentication, network segmentation, and regular vulnerability scanning. Under the proposed update, Security Rule policies also must be clearly outlined and accessible to all relevant personnel.

Staying ahead of legislative shifts

It’s essential to stay informed about changing legislation that could affect your healthcare organization. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Acute Hospital Care at Home (AHCAH) initiative, which has allowed hospitals to provide acute care services in patients’ homes, is set to expire on March 31, 2025. This initiative has enabled hospitals to deliver care more flexibly and efficiently. With the clock ticking, there is a strong push from healthcare officials to extend the waiver for an additional five years. This extension would help solidify the hospital-at-home model as a permanent fixture in healthcare delivery, ensuring continued access to high-quality, cost-effective care at home. Healthcare officials and Congress continue to negotiate on a permanent solution.

Our healthcare policy team is dedicated to keeping you informed of federal legislation that will impact your organization. We provide expert guidance to help you navigate the evolving landscape. SHI’s Care Anywhere approach can help your organization identify grants to support Hospital at Home, reducing costs through GPO contracts and optimizing your assets with ITAM services.

Enhancing healthcare access in rural communities

More than 61 million Americans call rural areas home, where they face increasing health disparities and limited access to care. While patient and clinician satisfaction are essential everywhere, rural hospitals often lack the budget to continually invest in new technologies. They often can’t compete with the higher salaries and advanced technologies found in cities, leading some to the brink of bankruptcy. To stay afloat, many rural hospitals have become Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), receiving additional federal funding and support to help them serve their communities.

But 2025 brings new challenges for CAHs. Proposed federal budget cuts, restrictions on Medicaid funding, and ongoing workforce shortages are putting these vital institutions at risk. These issues could make it even harder for rural hospitals to provide the care their communities need.

Empowering rural healthcare with technology

SHI Healthcare serves small and rural communities by identifying the funding resources needed to achieve their technology goals. We collaborate with leading group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to help determine the proper grants for your community, provide complimentary consultative services, and review grant applications before submission.

Experience healthcare without boundaries

In the age of automation, healthcare organizations must actively embrace technological advancements to enhance patient-centered care and establish a more equitable and efficient healthcare system for everyone. These technologies streamline processes, improve patient engagement, and provide personalized care, which is especially crucial for populations in rural areas.

Could your physicians benefit from ambient listening, allowing them to give patients their undivided attention? Are you concerned about keeping up with rapidly changing legislation in an uncertain world? Would your team benefit from expert grant advisory services?

Discover the power of Care Anywhere

SHI can help with all of this while empowering your healthcare organization to deliver high-quality, patient-centered care in any setting. We offer tailored IT solutions from leading technology providers, coupled with our expert integration and support services. Our Care Anywhere approach aligns the right technology with your organization’s needs to deliver the best possible patient outcomes. We ensure seamless integration of clinical mobility solutions, enhancing user experiences whether patients are in the hospital, at home, or on the go.

Aligned with the Quintuple Aim, our solutions enhance patient-centered care, improve population health, reduce costs, and promote health equity. While the future of healthcare funding remains uncertain, our team is committed to staying ahead of federal changes and providing expert guidance to help healthcare organizations thrive in an evolving landscape.

Interested in learning more about our Care Anywhere approach? Speak with a healthcare specialist today to discover how SHI can transform your healthcare delivery. Contact us to get started.