May 6, 2026

Whitepaper: Close the Portal Trust Gap Without Adding Login Friction

Nearly half of consumers access healthcare portals less than once a month, and 16% say they have never used one.

For payer organizations investing heavily in digital member portals, this gap between availability and engagement raises an important question: What is holding adoption back?

A new survey examines how individuals access healthcare portals, how they verify their identity and how confident they feel about the security of their personal health data. The findings highlight how security perceptions, authentication methods and awareness gaps influence whether consumers trust and use digital health platforms.

For payer leaders responsible for protecting member data while driving digital engagement, these insights shed light on where trust gaps remain and how identity verification strategies can evolve.

Key insights include:

• Why nearly half of consumers access healthcare portals less than monthly,
• The trust gap affecting portal adoption among non-users,
• Which portal features drive the most consumer engagement, and
• What security perceptions mean for payer digital strategy.

Click Here to Download this Whitepaper

May 6, 2026

Article: Agencies Warn of Agentic AI Cybersecurity Risks

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, National Security Agency and international cybersecurity arms have issued a guide about the careful adoption of agentic AI.

“The guidance primarily focuses on large language model-based agentic AI systems and highlights key security challenges and risks for organizations,” the American Hospital Association reported May 1. “It discusses threats and vulnerabilities within agentic AI systems and risks that arise from system behavior. The guidance also includes steps for designing, deploying and operating agentic AI systems safely.”

As health systems increasingly adopt agentic AI, the agencies warn of the expanded footprint and inconsistent behavior of the technology.

Click Here to Read Guidance

Click Here to Read More from America’s Cyber Defense Agency

May 6, 2026

Article: Closing the Access Gap: 6 Strategies to Redraw the Patient Care Map

For rural healthcare organizations, access has become the central organizing principle behind nearly every strategic decision.

This new operational reality is being shaped by a convergence of pressures. Workforce shortages, rapidly declining independent physician practices, geographic dispersion and aging populations have pushed traditional care models to their limits, widening gaps in access to routine and preventive services. A November 2025 Commonwealth Fund report highlights the consequences: nearly 40% of adults living in rural areas have sought care in emergency departments for conditions that likely could have been treated in primary care settings.

But the challenge, as athenahealth’s research and policy work make clear, runs deeper than geography alone. “I think access is much more nuanced,” Joe Ganley, vice president of government and regulatory affairs at athenahealth, said. “It’s great if I have a doctor’s office in my town. It’s not great if I can’t get an appointment for nine months because they’re totally booked, or I can’t afford it.”

In response, rural leaders are redesigning not just where but how care is delivered – through virtual-first workflows, expanded ambulatory and community-based care sites, stronger data-sharing and new partnerships that ease patients’ access to services while extending scarce clinical capacity.

This article, the first in a four-part series, “Rural healthcare excellence in 2026: 26 lessons in making less do more,” highlights six ways rural providers are expanding access through pragmatic innovation and what it signals for the future of care delivery.

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May 6, 2026

Whitepaper: 5 Strategies to Bring Discipline to Healthcare Labor Cost Management

Labor remains hospitals’ largest expense, yet many organizations still struggle to manage it effectively.

Persistent workforce shortages, rising premium labor and fluctuating patient demand have made traditional approaches insufficient. Organizations that rely on retrospective reporting often react too late, absorbing overtime costs and operational disruption.

This e-book outlines five proven labor management strategies used by high-performing healthcare organizations to better align staffing with demand, improve efficiency and sustain performance.

In this report, leaders will learn how to build a more structured, systemwide approach to labor management that connects daily decisions to long-term financial outcomes.

Insights include:

• Setting clear targets grounded in volume, rate and efficiency,
• Managing labor through consistent operating rhythms,
• Ensuring accountability at every level,
• Analyzing and reducing premium labor spend, and
• Approaching position control strategically.

Click Here to download this Whitepaper

May 6, 2026

Whitepaper: A New Era in Diabetes Management

A person living with diabetes may see providers across endocrinology, primary care, cardiology and bariatrics, yet continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) data is often not easily available to the full care team.

This guide shows how health systems can build a more connected, scalable approach to CGM management by making data more actionable inside the clinical workflow.

As CGM adoption grows, health systems have a chance to move from episodic review toward more continuous, team-based diabetes management. But success depends on more than device access. It requires workflows that support data visibility, clinical decision-making and financial sustainability.

This resource reviews the CGM landscape, outlines common workflow challenges and highlights opportunities to support enterprise CGM management across settings. It also examines how organizations can align CGM programs with value-based care, Remote Patient Monitoring and Chronic Care Management strategies.

Key takeaways:

• How to make CGM data actionable within the EHR workflow,
• How one regional health system approaches CGM management across care settings,
• Which reimbursement models can support long-term scale, and
• Why enterprise CGM strategies matter for chronic disease management.

Click Here to Download this Whitepaper

May 4, 2026

Whitepaper: Agentic AI in Healthcare: The Transformational Impact & How to Prepare

Traditional automation has improved efficiency, but it remains limited by static rules and predefined workflows.

As operational complexity increases, leaders are expected to make faster, more accurate decisions across revenue cycle, care delivery and population health – often without the real-time insights required to do so. Manual exception handling, delayed claims processing and fragmented data continue to strain both provider and payer organizations.

Agentic AI introduces a different model.

By operating autonomously within defined processes, learning from new information and adapting to changing conditions, agentic AI extends beyond conventional RPA and generative AI. It can analyze large datasets, identify patterns and guide evidence-based strategies across departments.

However, successful implementation requires careful attention to data security, transparency, workforce readiness and governance structures.

This report outlines how healthcare leaders can move from experimentation to structured adoption.

Key takeaways include:

• The defining characteristics that differentiate agentic AI from traditional AI from traditional AI and automation,
• Real-world provider and payer applications that improve operational and financial performance,
• Risks leaders must address, including security, oversight and workforce training, and
• A step-by-step preparation roadmap, from pilots to enterprise integration.

Click Here to Download this Whitepaper

April 28, 2026

Whitepaper: Inside the ‘Smart’ Hospital: Connecting Technology, Workflows and Care

Picture an environment where clinicians are not chasing information, IT teams are not managing endless integrations and leaders have real-time visibility into operations across the enterprise.

The promise of the ‘smart’ hospital is not more tools, but better coordination. It is an approach where systems, devices and workflows are continuously connected allowing hospitals to respond fast, operate more efficiently and help drive safer care across the continuum.

This whitepaper examines the smart hospital concept and explains why unified platforms are emerging as the digital foundation for hospitals looking to reduce fragmentation and imp0rove performance. Rather than layering on additional point solutions, smart hospitals focus on connecting existing investments through enterprise-wide infrastructure.

Download the paper to learn:

• Six core capabilities that define a smart hospital platform,
• How enterprise-wide connectivity supports end-to-end workflows,
• Why open, API-first architectures matter for long-term flexibility, and
• The operational challenges smart hospitals are designed to address.

Click Here to Download Whitepaper

April 28, 2026

Prevalence of Selected Chronic Conditions Among Adults Age 45 and Older, by Age and Urbanization Level: United States, 2024

Heart disease, cancer, cerebrovascular diseases (stroke), and chronic lower respiratory diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), are consistently among the 10 leading causes of death for U.S. adults. Studies have suggested that variations exist in the prevalence of these conditions by age and urbanization level, prompting further exploration into these differences. This report uses 2024 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data to describe the prevalence of heart disease, cancer, COPD, and stroke among adults age 45 and older by age and urbanization level

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide data on the prevalence of heart disease, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and stroke among adults age 45 and older by level of rurality, using data from the CDC’s 2024 National Health Interview Survey.

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April 27, 2026

Whitepaper: From Noise to Clarity: A Smarter Approach to Patient Communication and Payments

Imagine a patient who receives one clear message at each critical step of care – scheduling, check-in, results, billing and payment – with no confusion about what comes next.

Now contrast that with today’s reality: fragmented reminders, unclear bills and multiple senders competing for attention. In one recent survey, 70% of patients said they tune out frequent healthcare messages.

This report outlines a different approach: orchestrated, journey-based communication that connects clinical, operational and financial touchpoints into a single, coordinated conversation. It also explores how digitized payment solutions can process adjudicated payments quickly and disburse funds to physicians significantly faster than legacy systems.

Learnings include:

• How to align outreach with each stage of the patient journey,
• Why billing transparency is essential in a high cost-sharing environment,
• Strategies to optimize payment preferences and installment plans, and
• How small, targeted improvements can show value quickly.

Click Here to Download this Whitepaper