Commentary
MEET THE PROVIDERS REGION – HOSPITALS AND HEALTH SYSTEMS SCRAMBLE FOR FINANCIAL HEALTH
This corner of the bracket harbors the biggest trends featuring hospitals and healthcare systems. This year, it appears that the Provider region’s primary activity is focused on adapting to pernicious challenges such as prior authorization, workforce shortages, growing demand – and otherwise doing more with less in a year of special financial pressure.
The bright spot here is that perhaps, finally, providers, patients, and payors are finding common ground toward cost reduction, improved efficiencies, and quality care. With more healthcare systems seeing the light on hospital-at-home, ambulatory, and outpatient services, hospitals are winning with less demand on workers and slightly thicker margins. Patients benefit from improved outcomes and shorter hospital stays (or none at all), and payers approve of the lower costs without a compromise to quality.
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THE EIGHT TRENDS AND THE FIRST FOUR MATCHUPS
In this region’s opening salvo, AI Becomes the New Clinical Infrastructure (1) returns with fury after its spectacular loss to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) in the 2025 championship game. (As a side note, MAHA did not return this year, having been a bright 2025 wildfire that projected embers throughout the industry, many of which now burn as their own trends.) As predicted by last year’s Selection Committee, AI did not go quietly into that good night but spent the past year managing its explosive growth. In a major transfer proving that AI has truly come of age in healthcare, this Tournament All-Star has graduated from the technology nursery (Pioneers region) to the clinician club (Providers region). AI takes on rookie trend Prior Authorization Revolution (8), a team built on determined, organized resistance by providers and their advocates against the prior authorization requirements that insurance companies have long enforced. Through automation and regulatory efforts, providers are attempting to reduce the bureaucratic friction that they say delays and diminishes care.
Hospital-at-Home Goes Mainstream (4) brings back hospital-at-home players reenergized by Congress having extended Medicare’s Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver through 2030 – more than 400 hospitals across almost 40 states are now approved to deliver inpatient‑level care in patients’ homes. A growing number of health systems are scaling home-based acute care as a core service line, as evidence from early programs shows lower readmissions, shorter lengths of stay, and high patient satisfaction. In the first round, this trend dukes it out against tournament favorite Workforce Challenges Reshape Care Delivery (5), a franchise that regularly sends a team to the March Healthcare Classic. It’s abundantly clear now that rather than trying in vain to recruit more physicians and nurses to fix stubborn clinician shortages, the industry is rethinking care models, roles, and workflows to maintain capacity, close widening gaps, and manage cost.
Coming from the same training camp as the Hospital-at-Home movement, Ambulatory & Outpatient Expansion (3) strongly signals the growing agreement between patients and providers that clinical care is managed best when patients can access care quickly and return home as soon as possible. As an added benefit for multiple stakeholders, these settings also can reduce costs across the board. This team throws down with The Aging Demand Crunch (6), a team with outsized effects on healthcare as the Boomer generation begins its arrival at the highest healthcare utilization age group. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 1 in 6 Americans is now older than 65, and by 2034, people older than 65 will outnumber people younger than 18. The impact on healthcare will be colossal, and the effects have already begun.
Due to an unusual year of financial distress, hospitals and health systems are prioritizing technologies and pilots that reduce costs, improve throughput, or support the workforce. Performance Under Margin Pressure (2) is a new but competitive team that has emerged as providers grapple with increasingly unfavorable economics of providing hospital care. Their opening match is against Cybersecurity as a Clinical Priority (7) – the growing influence of cyberattacks on healthcare systems. In a recent HIMSS survey, nearly 75% of healthcare organizations say they have experienced cyberattacks that directly disrupted patient care and clinical operations. Cybersecurity maturity may now be as critical as infection control.
Meet the trends in the Purchasers & Plans, Policy and Pioneers regions.
What trends are the biggest healthcare changemakers? This year, the LinkedIn Community will decide!
To participate in the 2026 March Healthcare Classic, follow ro3 on LinkedIn and submit your Top Four and Champion predictions by Friday, March 27.
Starting Monday, March 30, the Community will vote round by round, narrowing the bracket down to the ultimate trend Champion. The bracket winner will be the participant whose predictions match most closely the Top Four and Champion trends as decided by the Community. The bracket winner will be announced on April 27!