Daily Dispatch, Day 3: Connections Summit wraps with future possibilities in focus
Article | September 18, 2025
Reading time: 10 mins
Extraordinary moments define healthcare’s future
In a packed room of providers and suppliers who are no stranger to the complexities of healthcare, Northwell Health President and CEO Michael Dowling spoke of hope, courage, optimism and purpose — reminding attendees that healthcare is more than a career.
It’s a calling.
And it’s in need of a new definition: one that broadens “health” to include areas beyond clinical care, including nutrition, education and social media effects.
“What we do is an obligation and a responsibility, not a job,” he said, underscoring the privilege of serving others.
Celebrating the extraordinary advances in medicine since his childhood and the resilience shown during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dowling emphasized that behind every metric is a human story — patients, families and communities whose lives are profoundly shaped by the work of healthcare professionals. The profession, he said, is transformational: saving lives, extending lives, bringing new ones into the world and educating the workforce of tomorrow.
“Every individual in healthcare has the power to inspire and to shape change,” he said. “Leadership is most powerful at the front lines, where compassion and resilience show up in the smallest of daily decisions.”
Dowling challenged participants to advocate boldly for science, truth and community health, arguing that optimism matters and that healthcare providers should be conveyors of truth and aim to continue progress each and every day.
“Progress moves at the speed of trust,” he said. “We need to promote integrity, respect and kindness, and we need to believe in the idea of togetherness to be successful.”
Dowling closed with a message of hope, asking leaders to think about the legacy they will leave behind for future generations.
“Our kids are watching. We’ve got to give the next generation reason for hope and reason to believe,” he said. “Let’s be inspirational. Let’s dream. And let’s think about how to create better tomorrows.”
Experience Camps receives Norman Borlaug Humanitarian Award
During the closing general session, Experience Camps was presented with the Norman Borlaug Humanitarian Award. Experience Camps offers free camps and year-round programs for children who have lost a parent, sibling or caregiver. The $50,000 award is given annually to a 501(c)(3) organization that is making a difference in the world.
“On behalf of the kids we serve: Thank you for this honor and thank you for joining us in changing children’s lives,” said Carly Basile, Experience Camps chief development officer. “This award will help us expand our reach — because in 2026, we are opening our ninth camp, in Texas. That means hundreds more children will find a place where they are not alone in their grief — where they can laugh, cry, dance and heal together.”
The story unfolds: Wednesday’s top 3 takeaways
1. From pilots to proof: Building scalable, trustworthy AI in healthcare
Wednesday’s sessions highlighted a pivotal moment in healthcare AI: The industry is moving beyond what one expert termed “pilot-itis” toward scaled, enterprise-wide adoption. Panelists underscored both the opportunities and the risks — acknowledging that while AI can transform documentation, revenue cycle, supply chains and even rural health access, success depends on more than technology alone.
The conversation also delved into the promise of agentic AI — systems that not only analyze but act, breaking down goals into tasks and carrying them out with varying degrees of human oversight. While human-in-the-loop governance remains vital for safety, speakers cautioned that not every workflow benefits from human review; sometimes it introduces bias or slows adoption. What matters most is a thoughtful, risk-based approach to oversight.
Equally important, leaders stressed that AI must be framed as a tool to superpower clinicians and staff, not replace them. With workforce shortages persisting, AI is less about substitution and more about creating capacity, reducing burnout and allowing teams to focus on the human side of care. In short, providers and suppliers alike must now shift from experimentation to disciplined execution — ensuring AI solutions are not only innovative but also trustworthy, sustainable and aligned with patient and workforce needs.
Your top action items:
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For providers:
- Move beyond proof-of-concept pilots by creating explicit scale-up plans and embedding AI into core workflows (e.g., ambient documentation, supply chain, clinical quality).
- Build governance frameworks that integrate workforce training, leadership safe spaces and risk-based oversight models — ensuring AI aligns with clinical and financial goals.
- Prioritize transparency and frontline engagement through dashboards, predictive tools and agentic AI pilots that demonstrate measurable outcomes, not just process efficiency.
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For suppliers:
- Deliver AI-enabled solutions that address defined problems (e.g., revenue cycle automation, sepsis prediction, ambient documentation) with demonstrable ROI.
- Provide explainability and outcome-based metrics (not just usage stats) to help providers assess true value.
- Partner in co-developing pilots with clear pathways to scale, positioning your solutions as part of the digital workforce rather than experimental add-ons.
Read the article Be cautious but move quickly: 6 actions to successfully deploy AI in healthcare and listen to this Sg2 Perspectives podcast episode that explores the current state of AI adoption across industries.
2. Suppliers as co-architects of healthcare’s future
Supplier education sessions reframed the role of vendors into that of collaborators who actively shape care. From device standardization to advanced analytics, the day challenged suppliers to demonstrate how they can co-lead transformation. Providers were reminded that supplier engagement works best when it starts upstream — aligning contracts, products and data capabilities with clinical priorities rather than treating them as downstream add-ons.
A recurring theme was the evolution of supply chain itself. Leaders described a roadmap toward an “agentic supply chain ecosystem,” where AI agents anticipate disruptions, optimize sourcing in real time and reduce manual work.
Ultimately, the call was clear: Go beyond transactional selling and position your solutions as foundational to health system transformation. By leading with interoperability, analytics and transparent collaboration, suppliers can redefine themselves as co-architects of tomorrow’s care pathways.
Your top action items:
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For providers:
- Bring suppliers into early-stage discussions to align products and contracts with clinical priorities and system-wide digital strategies.
- Use supplier analytics and benchmarking to sharpen internal decision-making, validate value analysis projects and anticipate disruptions before they occur.
- Encourage suppliers to participate in physician engagement and standardization initiatives, leveraging their insights to build alignment and reduce variation.
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For suppliers:
- Lead with integrated analytics and interoperability — design solutions that fit seamlessly into provider ecosystems instead of creating new silos.
- Go beyond transactional selling by offering services such as clinical adoption support, change management and culture alignment.
- Position yourself as a co-creator of next-generation supply chains (AI-augmented, resilient, transparent), aligning your success directly to provider outcomes.
Read the highlights from this year’s Vizient Supplier Forum that focused on harnessing new value propositions built on trust, transparency and shared purpose.
3. Smart sustainability — aligning financial stewardship and environmental impact
Food service, supply chain and medtech sessions across Tuesday and Wednesday highlighted how financial pressures and sustainability goals can be addressed together. The message: Waste reduction, cost control and environmental stewardship are not competing priorities, but mutually reinforcing.
Speakers urged providers to align sustainability efforts with the same discipline applied to quality and finance initiatives. Just as leaders must quantify the ROI of clinical improvements, sustainability must be measured in both cost savings and environmental gains. Case examples showed how cross-functional governance structures, real-time dashboards and daily huddles — tools already proven effective in scaling infection reduction and diabetes care — can also embed sustainability into enterprise culture.
The takeaway: Sustainability is a triple win — strengthening financial performance, improving efficiency, and advancing human and environmental health when it is scaled through governance, measurement and shared accountability.
Your top action items:
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For providers:
- Align sustainability initiatives with financial performance by treating environmental stewardship as a lever for cost avoidance and efficiency gains.
- Integrate sustainability into existing quality and finance governance structures (e.g., dashboards, daily huddles) to ensure it scales system-wide.
- Track and report the financial ROI of sustainability initiatives — quantify savings from reduced length of stay, avoided complications, supply standardization and waste reduction, alongside environmental benefits.
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For suppliers:
- Provide products and services that demonstrate ROI through dual lenses of cost savings and environmental impact (e.g., reusable products, renewable sourcing, waste reduction).
- Collaborate with providers on transparent measurement frameworks that quantify both financial and sustainability outcomes.
- Align innovation pipelines with market demand, workforce resilience and regulatory pressures, ensuring solutions meet both cost and environmental imperatives.
Explore our article Three ways sustainability can drive immediate cost savings across health systems and read the 2025 Collaboration for Healthcare Action to Reduce Medtech Emissions (CHARME) executive summary, which highlights progress to-date and what’s next.