Daily Dispatch, Day 1: Vizient Connections Summit opens a new chapter in healthcare
Article | September 16, 2025
Reading time: 9 mins
From vision to action: How courageous leadership will define the next era of care
In his opening keynote, Warner Thomas (pictured above at right), president and CEO at Sutter Health, asked the audience to imagine what’s possible when healthcare leaders look beyond today’s turbulence and build for the future.
He described a vision of a seamless, integrated ecosystem that connects patients across inpatient, ambulatory and digital settings. At Sutter, that vision is already taking shape: New ambulatory sites are opening at a rapid pace, destination centers of excellence are in development and physician recruitment across specialties is expanding access.
Opening more doors, Thomas emphasized, means creating a continuum of care that follows patients wherever they need to be.
Digital transformation, he noted, is a critical driver of that ecosystem. From online scheduling to AI-supported documentation, Sutter’s digital strategy is saving millions of hours for clinicians and staff while empowering patients to interact with the health system in ways that are intuitive and convenient. For Thomas, these efforts aren’t simply about technology adoption — they’re about delivering an effortless, consumer-centered experience that strengthens the human connection at the heart of care.
Underlying his remarks was a call for leadership that embraces courage, clarity and optimism. Thomas urged health systems to disrupt themselves before others do, to see change as opportunity and to lead with purpose.
“Systems that act quickly and courageously will define the future of healthcare,” he said, underscoring that the organizations willing to innovate and reimagine their models of care will be the ones to set the standard for generations to come.
Thomas was introduced by Vizient President and CEO Byron Jobe, who issued a challenge to the Summit’s 5,500-plus attendees: collaborate, innovate and collectively shape a more human-centric healthcare.
Thomas and Jobe concluded the opening general session with a fireside chat that touched on how to energize and lead teams, positively accelerate the pace of change and prioritize personal well-being to prevent burnout.
Supplier Awards spotlight strategic collaboration
Vizient celebrated supplier and distributor partners Monday night for their creativity, collaboration and commitment to building a stronger, more sustainable healthcare system that helps providers put patients, families and communities first.
“The Supplier Awards are one of my favorite moments of the year because they shine a spotlight on the incredible innovation, partnership and performance our suppliers bring to the table,” said Spend Management President Simrit Sandhu. “This celebration is about recognizing what’s possible when suppliers and providers come together to drive change.”
Drumroll, please ... read the press release to see this year’s Supplier Award winners.
The story unfolds: Monday’s top 3 takeaways
The Cliff Notes: Monday’s themes reinforced that safety, pharmacy and data are no longer siloed initiatives — they are interconnected levers of transformation. Providers walked away with strategies to standardize, scale and sustain change, while suppliers were challenged to step up as true collaborators in making healthcare more reliable, affordable and forward-looking.
1. From harm reduction to high reliability — reframing safety as a strategic imperative
The opening conversations of Connections Summit reminded everyone that patient safety isn’t just a compliance checklist — it’s the foundation of enterprise excellence. The day underscored a shift from reactive fixes to proactive design, where evidence-based practices, predictive technology and team-based redesign converge to make harm reduction measurable and sustainable.
Fresh evidence reinforced the case for safety as enterprise strategy. AI-driven early warning systems have demonstrated up to an 80% reduction in clinical deterioration events while simultaneously strengthening nurse-physician communication. Nursing-led geriatric programs using age-friendly frameworks have cut fall rates by 50% on pilot units. Rural outreach efforts that deploy community health workers have reduced emergency department visits by nearly half and improved readmission rates. Together, these outcomes demonstrate how systematic redesign plus frontline empowerment can transform safety into measurable, sustainable value.
Your top action items:
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For providers:
- Integrate predictive analytics and AI tools into workflows to spot risks earlier and intervene before deterioration occurs.
- Standardize high-reliability practices across units and departments to make safety “stick” at scale.
- Use case study lessons from peers to benchmark progress and accelerate adoption of proven strategies.
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For suppliers:
- Develop technologies and tools that align with providers’ need for earlier detection, streamlined workflows and measurable safety outcomes.
- Partner with health systems to co-create solutions that address not only clinical needs but also workflow efficiency and resource utilization.
A new joint American Hospital Association and Vizient report reveals better outcomes for hospitalized surgical patients. The significant improvement aligned not only with improved performance on patient safety metrics — such as reductions in infections and falls — but also with marked declines in three major surgical patient safety indicators: severe bleeding, sepsis and respiratory failure. Want to know how to keep the momentum going? Read our article featuring Vizient experts Saloni Jain and David Levine.
2. Pharmacy’s power play — from back office to the boardroom
A clear throughline on Monday was the elevation of pharmacy as a driver of enterprise strategy. Pharmacy leaders are no longer viewed solely as operational managers but as architects of financial sustainability, patient access and innovation. The message was clear: Those who can build resilient supply chains, optimize reimbursement and prepare for advanced therapies like cell and gene treatments will shape the next decade of care delivery.
Your top action items:
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For providers:
- Adopt frameworks (like High-Value Pharmacy Enterprise) to integrate pharmacy into system-level strategy, ensuring decisions reflect financial, operational and patient-centered goals.
- Build data-driven approaches to optimize programs such as 340B and invest in readiness for reimbursement models tied to high-cost therapies.
- Redesign pharmacy operations to improve scalability across sites, from infusion centers to specialty care.
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For suppliers:
- Anticipate provider needs around affordability, access and operational readiness for advanced therapies.
- Collaborate on data transparency and reimbursement alignment to accelerate adoption and prove value.
- Bring forward solutions that help pharmacy leaders demonstrate enterprise-wide impact.
Learn more about cell and gene therapy in practice in this episode of the Sg2 Perspectives podcast and read the latest edition of the Vizient Spend Management Outlook.
3. Data as the new currency of growth and trust
Data isn’t just for dashboards anymore. Health systems are using advanced analytics to unify fragmented operations, reduce unwarranted variation and create a culture of transparency. Data also is becoming a strategic asset — one that providers can leverage to align growth strategies with quality goals, and suppliers can use to prove their impact and strengthen partnerships. By deliberately linking diverse datasets and perspectives, health systems can balance safety, scale and sustainability in ways that drive lasting value.
Discussions also underscored that the future of data isn’t about producing more dashboards — it’s about embedding analytics and AI directly into daily workflows. The emphasis is shifting from admiring data to acting on it at the point of care or operations, giving leaders and frontline teams the ability to intervene in real time rather than react after the fact.
Your top action items:
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For providers:
- Align enterprise growth strategies with quality analytics to ensure expansion improves both outcomes and margins.
- Build learning health systems where real-time data drives accountability, performance improvement and frontline engagement.
- Use comparative benchmarks to identify unwarranted variation and accelerate progress toward value-based care.
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For suppliers:
- Use data partnerships to strengthen value messaging and demonstrate measurable outcomes.
- Collaborate with providers on co-developing analytics that support both financial and clinical decision-making.
- Position analytics not just as a service, but as a tool for shared strategic planning.
Check out the Vizient Data on the EDGE series, powered by Sg2 analytics, that helps you anticipate trends, align strategies and make smarter growth decisions.