We recently came home from HIMSS25 in Las Vegas, and while this year’s theme was officially “Where Visionaries Unite to Revolutionize Healthcare,” it will be better remembered as the year digital health ROI came to play.
Healthcare leaders, technologists, and innovators joined together to explore the evolving role of technology in our industry, bringing a mix of inspiration, urgency, and the undeniable reality that we’re navigating semi-organized chaos. Here’s a look at the biggest themes and takeaways from the conference.
Educational Sessions Highlight Patient Experience & Measuring Impact
HIMSS25 featured key discussions on the impact of digital health programs – including two notable sessions showcasing Xealth clients and executives that gave valuable insights for healthcare leaders looking to optimize their digital investments.
Quantifying the Value of Digital Health
A major challenge in digital health is defining success. CEO and Co-founder Mike McSherry shared UPMC’s quantification process for determining ROI for its many digital health programs, including clinician time savings, cost reductions and patient engagement. The health system developed a quantification framework to assess the financial ROI for various digital health programs. Xealth supports this process by automating and tracking the use of digital health programs with the EHR.
UPMC boasts digital health programs in a wide array of clinical areas, including surgery preparation, cancer screenings, chronic kidney disease, risk management for elite athletes, and maternal health. By applying this framework, UPMC can justify digital health investments and assess their effectiveness in delivering measurable benefits for patients, providers, and the organization.
During this session, McSherry detailed the three areas that fall within UPMC’s quantification framework:
- Value category: Define the primary benefit to the health system and include categories like clinician and staff time savings, IT resource savings, and revenue.
- Description: Questions that describe each value category. For example, how many minutes of clinician time can be saved per patient? Does the platform reduce the IT burden?
- Calculating value: Considers the maximum value per patient, multiplying it by patient volume and patient engagement. Cost savings are also considered, defined as the hourly rate of required resources multiplied by hours avoided.
Using this framework, UPMC makes upfront ROI justifications for its digital health programs and later assesses if the tools were effective and provided the benefits outlined.
One example shown involved a home physical therapy program in which therapists provide customized exercises digitally through the EHR for patients to do at home. UPMC found that therapists saved 1.5 minutes per patient and reduced user error by not having to log into multiple systems and copy/paste between them. The value per patient was $2.03, and with a patient volume of 55,268 in 2023, the annual value was $112,194. Further, the health system saved $81/hour of fully loaded costs for PT staff, including wages and benefits.
A second example is the value quantification of UPMC’s shared decision-making program to prep a person for breast cancer surgery, so the patient is better engaged during the consult, knows the questions, has answered questions that the clinician can review jointly so the conversation is more informed and actionable.
This surgery prep program saves 5 minutes/patient of clinician time by automating the process of sending patients educational materials – a cost savings of $250/hour of clinical time.
Conducting quantitative analyses makes it easier to gain C-suite buy-in for digital health programs and to leverage their use across clinical lines.
Launching a Successful Patient Experience Program
Advocate Health’s Director of Strategic Partnerships Edward Mitchell joined our COO and Co-founder Aaron Sheedy to share the personalized digital health experience journey the health system launched to support connection to and reinforce trust with its patients. This session explored strategies for successfully rolling out digital patient experience programs with strong internal support.
Xealth provides intelligent automation based on clinical workflows through its integration with the EHR. Using EHR data in the rule section configuration of the patient experience platform gets the right information to the right patient at the right time, without clinicians having to trigger and manage the flow of information to each patient.
As the Xealth platform automates patient education based on their health history, it reduces clinical administrative burdens.
Advocate’s program gets customized information to patients before, during, and after its more than 210,000 annual well-child exams – achieving a 30% increase in patient engagement, which demonstrates the effectiveness of targeted digital interventions.
Digital health programs offer more than immediate benefits – improving the patient experience can bring long-lasting benefits to the health system. Happier, better-informed patients can be more loyal to the health system delivering that experience.
Other HIMSS Observations – Hopeful Transformation
There’s continued buzz around how AI-powered tools can streamline workflows, reduce administrative burdens, and enhance patient outcomes. Yet, there was a shared understanding that we’re still in the early days—implementation is key and interoperability remains a challenge without an underlying platform.
Automation is already making a tangible impact, particularly in areas like revenue cycle management, clinical decision support, and administrative workflows.
While excitement for AI is high, leaders recognize that we need more robust governance, regulatory frameworks, and real-world validation before generative AI can truly revolutionize healthcare delivery.
One of the most encouraging themes of HIMSS25 was the growing alignment between payers and providers. Predictive analytics, real-time data sharing, and value-based care initiatives are bringing payers and providers together in ways that prioritize patient outcomes over operational roadblocks. This shift represents a significant step forward in creating a more efficient and equitable healthcare ecosystem.
The takeaway from HIMSS25? With digital health tools continuing to dominate the healthcare arena, health systems must develop frameworks and methodologies like these to ensure that they are reaping the promised rewards of digital healthcare cost-effectively.