LAS VEGAS—Get caught up with the latest news from the 2026 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Global Health Conference & Exhibition with this quick news recap.
Verily, Samsung team up to advance clinical research
Samsung Electronics has been actively picking tech partners to advance its ambitions in healthcare as it unveiled a stepped-up partnership with b.well Connected Health to scrap the patient clipboard and replace it with smartphones.
The electronics giant has now tapped Verily Life Sciences to combine wearable data and analytics to advance clinical research. The collaboration will bring together Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 8 with Verily’s precision health platform, Pre, to provide an integrated solution for generating evidence and monitoring real-world populations. This joint offering, a bundled solution, aims to accelerate research for life sciences and government customers by combining advanced health analytics with consumer-grade wearable data, the companies said.
Through this collaboration, Verily will fully integrate sensor data from the Samsung Galaxy Watch and make them accessible in its Viewpoint Evidence solution, which is built on the Verily Pre platform and enables research sponsors to run real-world studies with re-contactable participant cohorts. Sponsors will use Verily Pre data solutions including Refinery for data harmonization and Workbench for analysis, modeling and activation. Verily will provide artificial intelligence/machine learning based analytics and digital measure expertise paired with comprehensive clinical trial support across regulatory, development, operations and compliance.
The collaboration will enable researchers to combine Verily’s longitudinal dataset from consenting participants with Samsung sensor data, medical records, surveys and other third-party data. Sponsors can run their own studies using Verily’s registry population, leveraging full longitudinal data to explore sleep, activity and health outcomes, the companies said.
Verily will recruit and engage Samsung users for research participation, driving consistent use and high-quality data capture while enabling meaningful research and health insights.
The companies will also explore potential joint development of new and enhanced end-to-end solutions for clinical research.
Meditech expands ambient listening capabilities
Electronic health record company Meditech is expanding its Expanse AI portfolio with native ambient intelligence for physicians and nurses, the company announced Tuesday.
Meditech is integrating its native ambient intelligence solutions within the workflows of the Expanse Now mobile app for physicians and Expanse Point of Care app for nurses. These fully integrated solutions reduce documentation burden by capturing conversations in real time, automatically generating clinic visit notes and inpatient assessments and queuing next steps in workflow, according to the company.
“Meditech has been strategic in its application of artificial intelligence, focusing on areas where it can improve care delivery most,” said Cathy Turner, Meditech’s chief nursing officer. “By integrating ambient listening into Meditech Expanse Point of Care, we’re helping our nurses capture assessment data through natural conversation. This is not just about efficiency, but it is a meaningful step toward supporting the human connection that’s at the center of exceptional nursing care.”
The company also unveiled additional AI features including claim denials agents to streamline claim denial management and the appeals process. It generates a proposed action plan and drafts an evidence-based appeal with clinical data extracted from the EHR.
Meditech also developed an AI-powered assistant, MyHealth Assistant, integrated into the MyHealth patient portal that provides personalized and immediate support. And Meditech rolled out a new tool, called Ask Expanse, that lets clinicians ask questions via a chatbot interface at the point of care.
CoverMyMeds launches new specialty access and affordability solutions
CoverMyMeds announced new capabilities to streamline medical prior authorization, benefits investigation and patient enrollment for specialty therapies.
The company developed the new solutions to offer a fully integrated medication access experience that brings benefits investigation, medical and pharmacy prior authorization and patient services enrollment together directly within the CoverMyMeds workflow, executives said.
CoverMyMeds aims to support any medication, from the most complex specialty therapies to traditional retail prescriptions, while reducing administrative work for care teams and improving the overall patient experience.
The company’s new solutions expand automation across routine prior authorization workflows for medications covered under both medical and pharmacy benefits. An intelligent eligibility check routes each request to the appropriate benefit pathway for processing. It then automates the completion of enrollment and prior authorization forms leveraging clinical data from within the EHR and submits required documentation to insurance. This integrated capability maintains visibility for the provider during this process and can be integrated with hubs and specialty pharmacies that are also responsible for supporting patients getting on therapy, CoverMyMeds said.
Providers see fewer delays and more efficient workflows, while biopharma companies gain actionable insights to strengthen patient support programs and accelerate specialty therapy initiation, the company said.
Zoom announces new healthcare solutions
Zoom, the web and video conferencing platform, is growing its footprint in healthcare with updated features and solutions.
The company is strengthening its electronic health record integrations, and its Zoom Contact Center is now available in Epic Toolbox. It will be generally available in April 2026. More than 300 healthcare organizations use Zoom’s CX solutions to power patient communication and support. The EHR integration deepens Zoom’s ability to support large-scale adoption across hospitals, health systems and payer networks, the company said.
Zoom is also expanding its healthcare ecosystem with an Epic integration for Clinical Note. This enables clinicians to capture, review and finalize artificial-intelligence‑generated clinical notes without ever leaving Epic Haiku or Hyperspace. And Zoom Virtual Agent is now integrated with Epic, enabling healthcare organizations to automate routine patient inquiries across voice and chat channels and allowing clinicians to focus on higher-value, patient-centered care.
Zoom also is introducing new capabilities within Zoom Workplace for Frontline designed to streamline communication and coordination for clinical and operational teams. The enhanced solution, expected later in 2026, will enable teams to communicate instantly to close gaps with urgent messages, start every shift with clear visibility into who’s on duty and provide a single workspace for faster handoffs and collaboration.
RingCentral debuts AI agent for patient access workflows
RingCentral, an artificial-intelligence-powered business communications company, unveiled a voice-first, omnichannel AI agent platform designed to automate high-volume patient access and administrative workflows across voice, SMS, video and messaging.
It marks an industry-specific application of AIR Pro, an agentic voice platform, that delivers production-ready AI agents optimized for the unique operational and regulatory requirements of healthcare organizations, the company said.
“AIR Pro for Healthcare acts as an intelligent digital front door—handling calls, verifying coverage, scheduling appointments, updating records, and coordinating care seamlessly across channels. By automating routine interactions securely and reliably, it frees staff to focus on delivering more connected, human-centered care,” said Carson Hostetter, executive vice president and general manager, AI and CX solutions at RingCentral.
AIR Pro for Healthcare includes configurable, healthcare-specific accelerators with pre-built skills that automate common patient interactions. For example, when a patient calls to reschedule an appointment, AIR Pro can verify identity, access scheduling systems, evaluate provider availability, set appointment priorities and manage wait times, then recommend the best available options, RingCentral said. Once confirmed, the agent updates the appointment in the system of record and sends an SMS confirmation—all within a single interaction.
Pre-built skills include patient identity verification, intelligent call routing, appointment scheduling and rescheduling, patient check-in workflows, insurance verification, billing inquiries and patient intake and basic triage.
AIR Pro for Healthcare supports more than 80 integrations with electronic health record and healthcare management systems, including Epic, Oracle Health, athenahealth and eClinicalWorks.
Early pilot participants are testing AIR Pro for Healthcare to automate appointment management and common patient inquiries, enabling staff to focus on higher-value care coordination activities.
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