AHA Center for Health Innovation Market Scan

At the annual Leadership Summit in July, the American Hospital Association honored the 2026 Quest for Quality Prize winner and finalists. These providers stand out for their innovative approaches to care delivery and effectiveness in elevating quality in today’s challenging healthcare landscape.

ECU Health’s Department Stability Index (DSI) aggregates real-time data from nine platforms and tracks vacancy, turnover, patient experience, contract labor, safety incidents and workplace aggression.

A major study published this spring in JAMA Network Open analyzed outcomes for nearly 16,000 Medicare beneficiaries and found that hospital-at-home patients had dramatically lower in-hospital mortality — 0.4% compared to 3.6% for traditional inpatients — along with fewer ED visits within 30 days,…

Ambulatory care is expected to become the “new center of gravity” for health systems over the next decade, with outpatient volumes projected to grow 20% by 2036, according to the 2026 Impact of Change forecast from Vizient.

Google is investing in partnerships with health systems to advance the adoption of AI solutions in clinical settings and enhance both provider and patient experiences.

Key recommendations and best practices shedding light on how hospitals and health systems can overcome obstacles and expand access to much-needed behavioral healthcare services with telehealth.

At the AHA Leadership Summit in Denver last week, three healthcare leaders and an AI platform executive offered an experience-driven look at what responsible AI adoption requires.

Hospital smart rooms — which link digital whiteboards, door signs and computer vision cameras to electronic medical records and care plans — will enable more human connection between patients and clinicians.

A new AHA Market Scan Trailblazers report, sponsored by Concord Technologies, examines how AI — with its ability to quickly recognize patterns, contextualize data and extract relevant information — can significantly streamline the processing of incoming documents and messages.

Inspired by examples in other fields like NASA’s Mission Control, a number of multi-hospital health systems have launched command centers to balance patient distribution across facilities.