Around the world, healthcare systems continue to be strained—by chronic disease, causing three-quarters of all deaths, an aging population and a healthcare worker shortage projected to reach 13% by 2030.
The following five trends illustrate how healthcare innovation and cross-industry collaboration are helping healthcare systems, hospitals and clinical teams improve patient care, expand access and strengthen operations.
1. Building trust in AI: The next step to increase healthcare efficiencies and clinical team well-being
Shifts in demand, staffing models and complex workflows have burdened clinical teams with increased hours devoted to documentation. As patient volumes rise and teams operate with leaner staffing, clinicians are increasingly working extended or nontraditional schedules.
By reducing mental fatigue and chronic job stress, digital tools can help balance the workloads of team members, while also strengthening operational performance. For example, AI capabilities that enhance image quality can reduce cognitive overload and support more informed, timely decisions. At an operational level, predictive models can forecast bed occupancy, discharges and staff demands, enabling more proactive decision-making.
“I’ve learned that transformation happens not through revolution but through methodical trust-building,” says Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, Global Chief Science and Technology Officer at GE HealthCare. “The path forward requires embracing an uncomfortable truth: We’ll know healthcare AI has truly succeeded when it becomes boring and routine.”
2. Embracing the digital shift: Advancements in tech to help break access barriers
Essential health services are unevenly distributed across the globe, and more than half of the world’s population still lacks access to consistent care. This is prompting new approaches to extend the benefits of modern medicine to more people.
AI- and cloud-enabled tools are playing a larger role in helping clinicians reach underserved populations. To perform more complete and accurate exams, healthcare professionals in rural communities are using tele-ultrasound platforms, allowing real-time collaboration with specialty teams in other locations.
In other regions that might face more limited resources due to geography and limited training in the use of more advanced tools, cost-effective and portable solutions like AI-guided handheld ultrasound devices could enable nonspecialists to deliver care in remote areas.
“Beyond image interpretation, AI can also help streamline workflows, shorten diagnostic timelines and support clinical decisions—driving productivity across healthcare teams,” says Elie Chaillot, President and CEO of GE HealthCare International. Empowering local healthcare workers with the skills to use these tools effectively is essential to expanding access.”
3. Realizing more data-driven care: Turning untapped data into insights and action for better healthcare delivery
As technology has evolved, medical data has given clinicians a clearer picture of what is going on inside patients’ bodies and helped to model the risks and benefits of potential treatments. The growing volume of data—including more than 5.5 billion imaging procedures performed every year—is fueling new opportunities for digital innovation. However, it is estimated that as little as 3% of this data is currently being used, prompting the adoption of technology that can turn data into actionable insights.
By rapidly aggregating and analyzing data, digital tools—from generative AI applications that consolidate complex patient information to enterprise solutions that help optimize patient flow—are delivering benefits across the care continuum.
The power of the data is in how healthcare systems, hospitals and clinicians can more quickly glean insights from information coming from disparate systems in a way that helps make better, more timely decisions.
“The solution lies in reusable digital components—standardized data models, common authentication systems and interoperable interfaces,” says Kass-Hout.
4. Cross-sector collaborations: Developing solutions together is key to addressing healthcare challenges
Whether a healthcare system or hospital is looking to balance the cost of care with an improved patient experience or looking to expand healthcare services across a range of varying geographies, what works for one system or hospital might not work for another.
In the U.S., for example, decades of healthcare system consolidation have shifted the care landscape—and solutions across systems are not one-size-fits-all. While health systems might face common challenges, the ability to codevelop and customize solutions allows for closer alignment with each system’s highest priorities, enabling specific goals to be defined and addressed based on what matters most to each organization.
“To continue to provide quality patient care, where so much of a health system—and a patient’s health experience—is interconnected, we must address these dynamics holistically and through collaboration,” says Catherine Estrampes, President and CEO of GE HealthCare U.S. and Canada.
Across different regions, private and public stakeholders are coming together to share practices and develop technology to enhance the detection, diagnosis and treatment of disease and empower healthcare workers to leverage digital solutions. “Healthcare’s most pressing challenges demand collaboration beyond any single discipline,” says Chaillot. “Real progress emerges when governments, healthcare providers, NGOs and industry leaders unite to transform innovation into impact—bridging gaps in care, strengthening workforce capabilities and advancing more equitable access to care for all.”
5. Accelerating precision care: The power of nuclear medicine
Just as a single healthcare solution rarely fits all at the system, hospital, or clinician level, the same is true at the individual patient level. Driven by growth in radiopharmaceuticals, an ongoing chronic disease burden and more focus on personalized medicine, the rise of nuclear medicine brings precision care even closer to reality.
In oncology, precision imaging and highly targeted therapies are enabling broader adoption of theranostics, allowing oncologists to adapt treatment to an individual’s cancer and, in some cases, use radioactive isotopes to help clinicians predict which medications patients will respond to. Similarly, advancements in molecular imaging technologies, combined with pharmaceuticals, can accelerate the diagnosis and personalized treatment of cardiovascular diseases, making precision care at the individual level closer for cardiology patients.
Peter Arduini, President and CEO of GE HealthCare, further expounds, “Despite extraordinary innovations, nuclear medicine still faces barriers that must be addressed across technology, workforce, supply chain, infrastructure enhancements and clinical adoption.” And while barriers exist, they are not insurmountable, he says: “The availability of AI-enabled solutions is igniting a new era in nuclear medicine by accelerating innovation to fulfill the long-awaited promise of precision care.”
The next decade of healthcare: Innovation to make care more human and flexible
To unleash the full potential of these advancements, healthcare systems, hospitals, clinicians and industry leaders must continue to work together and embrace new ways of thinking. Success will depend on strategic collaboration across disciplines, adoption of new technologies and a commitment to getting the most out of healthcare’s most underutilized resource: data.
Cross-industry collaboration to help clinicians detect disease earlier, deliver more targeted treatments and ultimately improve patient outcomes means “innovators, clinicians, policymakers and payers must work together to ensure these advancements translate into equitable, sustainable care,” says Arduini. And while advancements are accelerated with the rise of new technologies and AI, “human touch is irreplaceable in healthcare. What we are developing now and how we safely and effectively implement new technologies in the industry will transform the future for generations.”
