Trending NOW: HIMSS26 with Sandeep Wadhwa and Cheryl Pammer

This special live episode of Healthcare Now Radio, recorded at HIMSS26 in Las Vegas, features insightful conversations with two industry leaders on the future of digital health, value-based care, and data analytics. Sandeep Wadhwa, Global Chief Medical Officer at Solventum, discusses the growing emphasis on rural health transformation and outpatient payment reform, highlighting innovative models like payment in full for a visit and the importance of risk-adjusted benchmarking. He emphasizes the value of international examples—such as Belgium’s approach to quality defect measurement—in advancing U.S. healthcare outcomes. Cheryl Pammer, Senior Head of Insights at Minitab, shares her decades of experience in healthcare analytics, stressing that despite the AI hype, many health systems still struggle with basic data collection, silos, and context-aware analysis. She warns against relying solely on LLMs without proper data preparation and domain expertise, advocating for a problem-first approach to analytics. Both guests underscore that data readiness and thoughtful question framing are foundational to meaningful insights. Key takeaways include: (1) Payment reform toward bundled, outpatient models is critical for scaling value-based care; (2) Risk-adjusted benchmarking and outcome measurement (e.g., post-procedure excess utilization) are essential for improving patient safety and reducing costs; (3) AI and LLMs are powerful tools but cannot replace human expertise in data context and process understanding; (4) Many health systems still rely on manual data collection despite digital transformation; (5) The most effective analytics start with a clear problem, not just data; (6) Interoperability and data integration remain major hurdles; (7) Human observation and process mapping are still vital for capturing meaningful data; and (8) The future of healthcare analytics lies in combining AI with deep domain knowledge and ethical data practices.