Live From HIMSS 2026: The Future of Healthcare IT
Disruptive Innovators: Champions of Digital Business - CIO & IT Leader Interviews, Digital Transformation, Digital InnovationShow Notes
In a special live episode recorded on the floor of HIMSS 2026 in Las Vegas, David Wright sits down with four healthcare technology leaders to capture a snapshot of where healthcare innovation stands right now. The guests are Benjiman Jennings, Assistant Program Manager of PEO DHMS; Dustin Hufford, Senior VP and CIO of Cooper University Health Care; Maria Sexton, Senior VP and CIO of UT Medical; and Michael Hasselberg, Chief Transformation and Digital Officer of Nebraska Medicine.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
00:00:00 Introduction. 00:06:30 Benjiman Jennings describes how cybersecurity requirements and budget instability compound inside government healthcare IT, creating a uniquely constrained environment for innovation. 00:14:00 Solving today’s problems creates tomorrow’s problems — and the real leverage is building for challenges five years out. 00:27:00 Dustin Hufford discusses foundational AI priorities: a cloud data lake, native AI development and a Chief AI Officer hire to coordinate maturation. 00:33:00 Consolidating patient data at health system level is impractical at scale, and there is a case for patient-held data with AI summarisation. 00:39:00 Maria Sexton reframes the ‘IT and the business’ language as a structural problem — one IT has largely created for itself by accepting a satellite role. 00:49:00 Maria shares what she learned when she arrived at UT Medical to find 430 listed projects, and what the CPO told her about running too far ahead of the organisation. 01:07:00 Michael Hasselberg explains how it has never been easier to build AI in-house. 01:09:30 An AI governance model, where use cases are voted on by the chiefs and CEO, ensures senior-level resource commitment before every build. 01:14:00 A clinician was convinced a vendor had the only solution, until process engineers scoped the problem and built it in five weeks.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Benjiman Jennings http://linkedin.com/in/benjimanjennings
PEO DHMS http://linkedin.com/company/peo-dhms
Dustin Hufford http://linkedin.com/in/dustin-hufford-ba70352
Cooper University Health Care http://linkedin.com/company/cooperuniversityhealthcare
Maria Sexton http://linkedin.com/in/mariasexton
UT Medical http://linkedin.com/company/ut-medical
Michael Hasselberg http://linkedin.com/in/michael-hasselberg-793a4111b
Nebraska Medicine http://linkedin.com/company/nebraskamed
HIMSS 2026 https://www.himss.org
CMS Tech Ecosystem https://www.cms.gov
PEO DHMS https://health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Technology/PEO-DHMS
Cooper University Health Care https://www.cooperhealth.org/
Nebraska Medicine https://www.nebraskamed.com
UT Medical https://www.utmedical.org/
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