A few weeks have passed since HLTH 2025, but the conversations in Las Vegas are still echoing across the industry. As the dust settles, it’s worth asking: What really matters now for the organizations on the front lines of risk and care transformation, such as provider networks and the payers that partner with them?
Here’s what stood out, not as a conference recap, but as a reflection on the signals that should guide network leaders as we look toward the next cycle of innovation.
1. The End of Incrementalism
For years, health IT has promised “integration” and “interoperability,” but the results have mostly been incremental: one more connection, another portal, or a new layer of administrative work. At HLTH, the energy had shifted. The industry seems done with small fixes. The organizations making waves are the ones fundamentally rethinking how value is orchestrated, not just how data moves.
For risk-bearing entities, this isn’t just about efficiency. It’s existential. Margins, performance, and provider satisfaction are all on the line. Leaders are asking: What would it take to actually remove friction, not just move it around? The answer is starting to look less like another standalone solution implementation and more like a complete rewiring of how data, tools, and action reach the front lines.
2. Partnership as a Growth Engine
A key HLTH theme was partnership, not as a buzzword, but as a competitive differentiator. The old days of “go it alone” or relying on one vendor are over. Instead, networks are succeeding by building ecosystems: tight alignment with payers, technology partners, and developers who can extend capabilities without adding complexity.
But not all partnerships are created equal. The focus now is on partners who make collaboration seamless, enabling teams to experiment, embed new tools quickly, and deliver value where it’s needed most. For providers, the opportunity isn’t just in contracting with more vendors; it’s in orchestrating a platform where innovation can actually take hold and scale while reducing administrative burden for providers and care teams.
3. Embedded, Accountable AI, Not More Hype
AI has dominated health conferences for the past couple years, but HLTH marked a subtle turning point: less hype, more skepticism, and a higher bar for what counts as real impact. Providers and payers aren’t asking for AI for its own sake. They want secure and compliant automation that’s embedded in the workflow, solving specific pain points rather than introducing new risks or distractions.
The practical takeaway: Don’t buy promises. Specifically, ask where AI is reducing administrative burden, delivering contractual performance, and improving patient outcomes. Require transparency about security, regulatory alignment, and measurable results.
4. Orchestration Over Interoperability
One of the most important shifts was a move from “interoperability” as a technical outcome to “orchestration” as a business imperative. The goal isn’t just to make information available; it’s to deliver the right action, at the right moment, in the right workflow, whether that’s surfacing actionable and timely insights at the point of care, triggering a necessary external workflow, or enabling a new application across the network.
For providers with risk on the line, orchestration is the only way to scale performance, support providers, and respond to the pace of regulatory and commercial change. It’s the difference between managing a patchwork and building a growth engine.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The lesson from HLTH is clear: this is a pivotal moment for providers, risk-bearing entities, payers and health tech companies. The organizations that thrive next won’t be those with the most tools or the biggest budgets, but those that eliminate friction, activate their ecosystems, and orchestrate value in real time.
This means looking critically at every layer of your tech stack and every partnership:
- Are your systems making things easier for providers, or just adding more to their plates?
- Can you bring on new capabilities quickly, or does every project take months of custom work?
- Are you able to demonstrate measurable improvements in performance and provider experience?
If not, now’s the time to set a higher bar.
The future is closer than it looks. For providers, and payers willing to rethink what’s possible, and demand more from technology and partners, HLTH wasn’t just another event. It was a call to action.
