By Julie Bastien, Vice President, Marketing, eVideon Health
LinkedIn: Julie Bastien
LinkedIn: eVideon Health
Every spring, the health IT conference circuit kicks into gear, bringing tens of thousands of healthcare and tech professionals together in cities like Las Vegas, Orlando, Chicago, and Austin. The industry reflects on lessons learned during these gatherings and charts the course ahead. This year, at ViVE and HIMSS, one message rose above the buzz: we are at an inflection point in how technology supports the human experience of medicine.
For the past decade, the conversation has been all about adoption: getting clinicians to use EHRs, making patient data portable, and streamlining hospital operations. There have been significant strides in these areas across our industry, but often, it has meant the conversations focus more on systems than outcomes.
This year felt different. With tech now deeply embedded, the narrative shifted from “How do we implement this?” to “How do we make it matter?” It is no longer about using technology. It is about whether technology truly improves care, reduces burden, and restores human connection.
When tech reduces friction, it frees clinicians to focus on what matters. There is less time charting and more time connecting. Less administrative chaos, more room for healing. Think of smart inpatient rooms with personalized controls, bedside access to education and entertainment, and integrated systems that talk to each other and coordinate care, seamlessly.
At HIMSS, Valley Health System offered a blueprint for how that vision can be realized. Their new hospital wasn’t just built to house advanced tech. It was designed to work with clinicians, not against them.
Patients can control lighting, shades, and temperature from a bedside interface, reducing calls to staff and increasing autonomy. AI-powered monitoring systems track movements to predict and prevent falls, with voice assistants reminding patients to wait for help. It is working. Valley has seen a 20 to 30 percent drop inpatient falls.
Communication tools also got a facelift. Digital whiteboards replace outdated dry-erase versions, updating in real-time with care plans, provider names, and more. Smart door signage displays patient info before entry. RTLS badges automatically identify staff and even lower the TV volume during physician rounds, removing barriers to communication without adding complexity.
Clinician workflows got a detox. With an alert reduction system led by a formal committee, Valley eliminated about 2,000 unnecessary alerts per day. The result: clinicians had fewer distractions, better focus, and more time at the bedside, where care actually happens.
Heather Wood, CPXP, VP of Clinical Innovation and Training at Vibe Health, reinforced this direction during a FINN Voices podcast interview at HIMSS (listen below). She put it plainly, inspired by her experience as both a nurse and a patient: “Smart hospital rooms matter, and you should ask for one during your next inpatient stay.” Wood emphasized that the breakthrough is not just the tech itself. It is how it empowers patients while supporting care teams. Vibe Health’s collaborations with Valley Health, Nebraska Medicine, and Northwell Health show how thoughtful integration improves not just care delivery but the entire experience.
ViVE echoed these same themes. There, the focus was on designing operations around workflow, not retrofitting tech onto broken processes. AI, real-time patient tracking, and smarter communication tools are becoming foundational rather than optional. When integrated correctly, they eliminate inefficiencies instead of piling on more digital debris.
A major throughline across both events was interoperability. Leaders pushed for smart rooms, EHRs, RTLS, and telehealth platforms to function like one system. When clinicians can request transport, update records, and coordinate care without jumping between systems, they save time and reduce frustration.
Critically, patient experience was not treated as a separate initiative – and that is how it should be. Now with its own showcase at HIMSS, patient experience is the natural result of well-designed workflows. Every process is streamlined and every barrier removed helps care teams be more present.
Smart hospitals are already proving this. Bedside tablets, digital boards, and interactive TVs keep patients informed while reducing the administrative load on nurses. That is not just efficient. It is human.
And while AI was the hot acronym everywhere, the most compelling discussions were not about capabilities. They were about purpose. The goal is not to replace clinicians or impress investors. It is to reduce cognitive overload, support better decisions, and bring the human side of medicine back to the surface.
Efficiency, efficacy, and experience are the big three. This spring’s conferences signaled a meaningful shift: a move away from surface-level innovation toward solutions that support clinical performance and patient engagement. Technology is finally being measured not by its features but by its ability to serve people on both sides of the care experience.
Looking ahead to the rest of the year and beyond, the bar is higher. Progress will be defined by integration, execution, and impact. Ultimately, the value of innovation isn’t in how well systems connect but in how effectively they enable people to connect, collaborate, and deliver better care.
Listen in to this episode of FINN Voices with host Beth Friedman and her guest, Heather Wood.