Ruth here again. This week, I’m paying attention to a white paper that says health systems have a hard time managing a glut of AI products and are wedded to their electronic health records’ timelines to adopt artificial intelligence. 

The paper was compiled from 1:1 interviews with more than 60 executives at medium and large health systems, including CIOs, Chief AI Officers, CMIOs, and other senior IT leadership by Qventus, an AI platform for hospital operations.

The vast majority of respondents (88%) said that in 2025, they implemented AI governance frameworks and began implementing AI tools across their organizations. A year ago, only half of the respondents reported organization-wide rollouts of AI products. 

Here are the major points of the survey that stick out to me:

Another barrier: measuring the return on investment for AI products. 

Slightly less than half of respondents said they are deploying AI across multiple use cases, but only 4% have achieved scaled AI implementation with measurable outcomes. 

Part of the problem is that there isn’t necessarily agreement about what should be measured. Some organizations look at whether products are leading to revenue generation, cost savings, or improved outcomes for patients. But sometimes the ROI is less tangible—like improved morale for doctors. For that reason, 39% of respondents don’t have a clear process for benchmarking AI performance or ROI.

Headwinds/tailwinds? The report says that the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill is expected to lead to $1 trillion in federal spending cuts that will impact organizations that receive reimbursement from Medicaid and Affordable Care Act programs and put pressure on hospital margins. 

That financial pressure, combined with labor shortages, may actually stoke AI / NIV, as health systems move to make their operations more efficient. 

Key insight: Dr. Joseph Sanford, chief clinical informatics officer at the University of Arkansas for Medical Services, who was one of the respondents in the survey,v said he thinks there’s a real opportunity for creative disruption. 

“A lot of really cool solutions will come out of those who are working with the FQHCs of the world or working with non-major academic medical centers, right? [Those who aren’t fully and inevitably committed to whoever their EHR is,” he told Second Opinion.

And now onto the news of the week, as compiled by Annalisa. 

Megadeals are driving investments into AI startups, which have raised a combined $4 billion in the first quarter of 2026. This is both a larger sum compared to the $3 billion of 2025 and spread over fewer deals. The average deal was $36.7 million, the highest value since 2021. 

We often hear that AI scribes are making healthcare more efficient and helping providers get paid better. Turns out, not so much: not only do the efficiency gains appear modest, but costs are going up, according to insurers and providers, and there’s no clear solution in sight. 

Speaking of AI costs, UnitedHealth is investing $3 billion in a big AI push. This could have a big impact on patients’ lives, if AI is tasked with making important coverage decisions. The insurer has already been under fire for its use of AI to deny claims. 

Despite the Trump administration’s promise to remove barriers for health AI companies, the FDA denied Harrison.ai’s proposal to exempt some AI devices from premarket reviews. The company, which makes AI tools that support radiologists in evaluating medical imaging, filed the petition last year, and received a complete and detailed refusal, despite the fact that the current head of the FDA’s Digital Health Center of Excellence used to work for a Harrison.ai subsidiary.

As the healthcare system turns to AI to make up for physician shortages, Glenn Steele Jr., the former CEO of Geisinger Health System, wrote in an op-ed that the US health system has the opportunity for radical labor replacement through AI. Technology, he says, could replace a large amount of positions — administrative, operational — that are currently burdening the system with unnecessary costs. 

All deals are AI now, so Rock Health is retiring its AI deal tracker.

Catalyst MedTech, a nuclear medicine and molecular imaging solutions company acquired X3D, a leading manufacturer for medical equipment companies. 

Anthropic acquired  Coefficient Bio, a company founded by former Genentech researchers less than a year ago, to build out Claude’s capabilities as an infrastructure for drug discovery. The all-stock transaction is valued at $400 million.

Merit Medical expanded its oncology portfolio by acquiring Viewpoint Medical, the company producing a steerable needle technology for accessing difficult-to-reach tumors. The transaction value is estimated at $140 million. 

Blackstone-backed AGS Health is eyeing a $500 million IPO in India, with the plan of capitalizing over the medical outsourcing market. 

AI-native brokerage platform Gyde acquired Avid Health, a top-rated Medicare agency. This is Gyde’s first announced partnership after its recent public launch with a $60 million backing from Lightspeed. 

Health insurance infrastructure company Yuzu Health closed a $35 million Series A round led by General Catalyst and Chemistry.

HeyDonto, a dental AI company building a dental-medical interoperability platform, raised $20 million in a Seed round at a $200 million valuation. The round was funded by eight private investors, including practicing dentists.

Luminai, an AI company to streamline health system operations, announced its partnership with the Cleveland Clinic and $60 million in funding. 

Menopause provider Alloy is expanding its weight management offering with a $99/month program, plus at least $70 a month for medications. 

Waystar is launching the first AI tool to address post-payment adjustments, known as “silent denials,” which take an estimated $40 billion from providers. 

And this week on Lifers, Christina Farr sits down with the Access TeleCare founder and chief strategy officer, Dr. Chris Gallagher, as well as TeleCare’s chief of maternal-fetal medicine, Dr. Blake Porter, to talk about a new area of growth for telehealth, following its pandemic-era surge. Telehealth is now bringing subspecialty expertise to places that don’t often have access to specialized care.