Health tech's next phase: AI partnerships, virtual care wins, and the push for real interoperability

A cluster of announcements in mid-2026 points to a health tech sector moving from pilot programs into scaled deployments, driven by measurable safety outcomes, new AI vendor agreements, and a federal interoperability framework that is quietly raising the bar for what it means to participate in connected care.

Virtual sitting's measurable case

The clearest proof point comes from Prime Healthcare, which announced a system-wide expansion of Collette Health's virtual observation technology after a pilot at Paradise Valley Hospital in National City, Calif., cut patient falls on medical-surgical units by 84%, according to Fierce Healthcare.

Prime, a 55-hospital non-profit system, will now move beyond virtual observation into comprehensive virtual nursing programs. Collette Health CEO Holly Miller said the partnership "exemplifies how virtual observation serves as the strategic foundation for comprehensive virtual care transformation."

Collette Health reports it has partnered with more than 185 hospitals across the U.S. and delivered $3.96 billion in savings, according to the May 19 announcement cited by Fierce Healthcare. The Prime deal illustrates a pattern in which a single strong pilot result opens the door for enterprise-wide adoption.

Agentic AI enters the contact center

On the AI integration front, agentic AI platform Hyro announced a partnership with cloud contact-center provider Five9 that establishes Hyro as the first Five9-accredited healthcare-specific vendor, according to Fierce Healthcare. The agreement is designed to cut the time required to plug AI agents into existing contact-center infrastructure.

Jess Shea, senior partner manager at Five9, said in a May 20 press release that the arrangement means health systems "no longer have to compromise between a robust contact center platform and vertical-specific agentic AI."

The timing is notable. A separate survey reported by Fierce Healthcare found that organizations across U.S. healthcare are still struggling to move AI from concept into practice, making plug-and-play integrations like the Hyro-Five9 model increasingly attractive to operators under cost and staffing pressure.

Epic builds an operations layer

Epic Systems is extending its footprint beyond clinical records with EpicOps, an operational software initiative whose first application, Teamwork, focuses on clinician and staff scheduling and resource planning, according to Fierce Healthcare. The move positions Epic to capture workflows that have historically belonged to specialized workforce-management vendors.

The scheduling module is the opening move in what Fierce Healthcare describes as a longer-term play to build out tech operations capabilities from within Epic's existing health system relationships. For Epic's hospital clients, the attraction is consolidation: fewer vendor relationships and tighter data loops between clinical and operational systems.

CMS raises the interoperability bar

Federal policy is providing the structural context for all of this activity. CMS's Health Tech Ecosystem framework lays out voluntary but detailed criteria across four categories, aligned networks, EHRs and providers, payers, and technology partners, with the stated goal of enabling real-time, consented health data access at scale, according to CMS.

For EHRs and providers, the framework requires structured FHIR-based data exchange as well as unstructured clinical documents, notes, PDFs, images, and mandates that appointment and encounter notifications reach CMS Aligned Networks within 24 hours of occurrence. Payers must make claims data accessible through Patient and Provider Access API standards.

An optional but significant add-on across all categories is support for electronic prior authorization, aligned with HL7 FHIR Da Vinci standards. CMS frames the framework as voluntary self-attestation, but organizations that do not meet the full criteria for a given category are directed to pledge instead as a "Friend of the Ecosystem", a distinction that carries real market signaling weight.

Data partnerships target affordability

Away from the infrastructure debate, Morristown, N.J.-based Atlantic Health System announced a partnership with Garner Health Technology to steer employees at participating employers toward Atlantic's clinicians, with a focus on lowering costs and improving quality, according to Fierce Healthcare. Garner's dataset spans more than 60 billion medical records from 320 million patients, per a May 19 press release.

Atlantic will also use Garner's data to inform internal quality improvement work, making the arrangement a two-way exchange rather than a simple referral engine. The deal reflects a broader industry push to attach data-driven accountability to value-based care commitments.

Pharma's digital trial ambitions

The operational changes playing out in health systems have a parallel in pharmaceutical R&D. AstraZeneca has set a stated ambition that 90% of its new studies will carry a digital health strategy tailored to that specific trial, according to the company's R&D pages. Its Unify platform supports remote, real-time data collection through devices and apps, reducing in-clinic visit requirements and broadening the diversity of patients able to participate.

AstraZeneca frames digital health as central to compressing drug development timelines, arguing that continuous data collection from patients at home can yield faster endpoints than traditional periodic site visits. The approach spans its oncology and biopharmaceuticals portfolios, which include cardiovascular, renal and metabolic, and respiratory and immunology programs.

What it means for operators

Taken together, the week's activity describes a sector in which the tolerance for unproven pilots is shrinking. Purchasers of virtual care, AI, and data tools are demanding documented outcomes, fall rates, savings figures, integration timelines, before committing to enterprise rollouts.

The CMS interoperability framework adds a compliance dimension that will likely accelerate vendor sorting: organizations that can demonstrate FHIR readiness, 24-hour notification capability, and clean claims data exchange will be positioned differently from those that cannot. For health IT vendors, meeting that bar is no longer optional if they want a seat at the table with federally aligned networks.