Deborah Kaplan

How AI & analytics are impacting pharmacy operations
“The job of data analytics is to derive insight,” shared Aigner George, PharmD, HealthTrust’s Assistant Vice President, Performance Solutions, as she moderated a panel of pharmacy executives during an HTU conference presentation in 2025.
While data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) have been used in healthcare for some time, using the tools today is about much more than running reports. The challenge is making data actionable and c...

In the world of medical devices and technology, purchasing has become increasingly complicated as innovations are introduced at a rapid rate. In 2025, the FDA authorized 3,238 new 510(k) medical devices—that’s more than half of the 5,640 total marketing submissions it approved. The number of authorized devices was 4.2% higher than in 2024.
“Health systems can no longer contract their way out of cost,” says Aashish Shah, M....

Radiology departments were among the earliest adopters of artificial intelligence (AI), using the new capability to automate image segmentation and measurements, detect critical findings and triage cases. That doesn’t mean, however, that adoption has been quick or without scrutiny. The rapid growth of AI has increased pressure on health systems to ensure new technology delivers measurabl...

When Hyaat Chaudhary founded Luxome in 2018 to sell luxury weighted blankets, "returns were an afterthought," he said. Not every customer wants to keep the products they order, so returns piled up at the warehouse.
Other retailers disposed of their returns in landfills. "It just drove me crazy as a human being. It seems wasteful, and I care about the environment," Chaudhary told Business Insider.
At one point, Chaudhary donated 5,000 weighted blankets locally. His approach flooded the market,...

In purchased services, fragmented supplier management is costing hospitals millions—new tools make fragmented spend visible & actionable
Many health systems lack tools and resources to address Purchased Services contracting, which accounts for 50% of non-labor spend on average. CoxHealth was no different. To address this, it launched a three-year engagement with Valify Advisory in 2024. While the chief supply chain officer (CSCO) and contracting manager were focused on supply chain strategy a...

Clinical evidence along with strong clinician engagement and careful planning are helping hospitals retire one of healthcare’s common anesthesia-related greenhouse gases—without risking patient safety.

A data-driven case for change

When Avery Palardy, MBA, MS, joined Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in 2019 as a sustainability program manager, she knew removing desflurane from the formulary would have significant impact. “The anesthesia gas has 2,400 times the global warming poten...

Until May 2025, Net Zero Logistics' vans were running 30 to 40 routes daily across Connecticut. Mark Chiusano, the CEO and owner of Net Zero, which focuses on the last mile of deliveries, said he wanted more efficient routes that would lower costs while meeting client needs.
Net Zero's own transportation management software couldn't suggest optimized routes, so Chiusano said they decided to try Finmile, an AI-powered transportation routing software that provides dynamic routing based on locat...

Highlights of what will be shared at the AACR meeting from Memorial Sloan Kettering researchers include treatment of early-stage rectal cancer with protein inhibitors targeting HER2, alleviating the need for some patients to receive radiation and/or surgery. Additional topics included the development of a personalized RNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer, with almost 90% of responders still alive six years after treatment, and development of a framework to understand biomarkers and vulnerabilities during the early to late stages of transitions from lung cancer-enabling adenomas...

Germline and somatic oncogenic alterations are frequently seen in breast cancer, yet it’s not well understood how their interaction influences tumor evolution and therapy resistance. Researchers now have new insights through a comprehensive integrated clinicogenomic analysis and preclinical investigation led by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and published in Nature on March 4, 2026.
The MSK-led multi-institutional study combined large-scale clinical-genomic analyses with mechani...

Consumers want to buy wherever they engage with media—here’s how to help them.
e-commerce, marketing, advertising, restaurants, technology

By uncovering nuanced consumer patterns, AI is fueling more precise, agile, and creative approaches to marketing
In marketing, AI is most broadly known for developing creative assets and saving teams valuable time. But given the wealth of available data from multiple parties, AI tools can also surface actionable insights to better target new and existing consumers while measuring the re...

The marketing funnel has evolved thanks to omnichannel shopping, social media, and personalization.
Consumers have more control over their role in the marketing funnel.
Rather than trying to reach every consumer, brands should focus on personalizing their marketing message and targeting consumers at the right moment in the funnel.
In this omnichannel era, marketing has been thrown for a loop. Customers may still need multiple touchpoints...

Food and pharmaceuticals often must be sent in temperature-sensitive containers, which can lead to sustainability issues. Discarding expanded polystyrene (EPS) boxes after a single use is wasteful, especially as these companies will continue needing boxes for the same purpose. Cold chain company eutecma GmbH (Mannheim, Germany) aims to change that, through its retecma refreshment program. The program analyzes boxes using machine vision, cleaning them to keep them in the rotation.
“There was a...

Uncovering savings & optimization opportunities in surgical implant purchases

In just the past few years, HealthTrust’s Medical Device Management has delivered over $60 million in savings to its members. Building on this achievement, the team recently introduced SurgIntel, a groundbreaking platform for medical device implant analytics.

SurgIntel leverages a proprietary database, advanced clinical categorization and innovative visualization techniques to deliver actionable insights that ...