08 Jul Healthcare Technology Priorities for Clinical Companies
The planning assumptions that worked in 2022 are quietly failing. In 2022, healthcare CIOs were building business cases for AI pilots. In 2026, they're being asked why the pilots haven't become products. In 2022, cybersecurity was a compliance topic. In 2026, the Change Healthcare ransomware attack — which affected 192.7 million Americans, roughly two-thirds of the US population — turned it into a board-level operational risk that no CTO can defer. In 2022, interoperability was a regulatory aspiration. In 2026, it's a technical prerequisite for any system that touches patient data.
Clinical companies entering the second half of the decade are navigating a different kind of pressure. Budgets are tighter: 41% of health system executives anticipate reduced capital investment over the next two years, according to a March 2026 survey by Sage Growth Partners. The window for exploratory technology spending is narrowing. At the same time, the expectations for what technology needs to deliver — in clinical efficiency, data security, and measurable patient outcomes — have grown sharply. Every line item now needs a business case, and every business case needs to hold up against harder questions than it would have two or three years ago.
