Patient & Consumer Innovation Summit 2025

KLAS conducted two pre-summit surveys: one that was given to summit attendees and one that was available to the general public. The following charts draw from feedback given in the survey available to the general public. The survey given to summit attendees was used to provide additional data and context for the small-group discussions during the summit as well as to inform insights shared in the Playbook for Patient-Centric Care.

The Voice of the Patient

KLAS intentionally kicked off the summit by listening to patients’ voices to ensure they were the foundation of the summit.

Key Takeaways:

• Technology often fails to meet patients’ real needs: During the panel, patient representatives shared how fragmented systems, inaccessible portals, and confusing test result displays create unnecessary burdens and emotional stress, especially during vulnerable moments.
• Human connection and communication matter most: Although having digital access to healthcare is important, the patient representatives emphasized the importance of human connection when receiving diagnoses—e.g., in-person explanations, clear language, and listening clinicians. Some shared traumatic experiences of receiving serious diagnoses through impersonal channels.
• AI and personalization show promise: The panelists expressed cautious optimism about AI, highlighting its value in organizing health information, summarizing test results, and tailoring support. However, they emphasized that AI needs to be grounded in trusted data and guided by clinicians.
• Patient portal usability and education need improvement: Patient portals are often underutilized because patients aren’t shown how to effectively use them. To improve patient adoption of portals, organizations should implement strategies like in-app tutorials, on-demand education, and simplified test labeling.
• Healthcare organizations should learn from consumer experiences: The patient representatives highlighted how care experiences often pale in comparison to experiences with companies like Apple or Disney. They urged healthcare organizations to adopt similar personalization strategies and create seamless care experiences.

Provider Organizations Practicing Patient Centricity

In this panel, provider representatives were asked to share examples of patient centricity at their organizations.

Key Takeaways:

• Make patient voices central to healthcare digital strategies: Organizations can listen to patient voices through advisory groups or direct feedback loops. Seattle Children’s shared an example where listening to patient input led the organization to launch a Minecraft gaming environment for hospitalized children—highlighting how user-driven design enhances care and engagement.
• Break down barriers to patient equity and access: The panelists reported making significant strides toward engaging Medicaid patients and non-English-speaking populations by leveraging bilingual navigators, digital literacy support programs, and community health workers. Several organizations have also seen substantial increases in patient portal adoption among previously hard-to-reach groups.
• Prioritize governance and communication: The panelists shared concerns about patient overload due to fragmented digital touchpoints; for example, patients sometimes receive about 30 messages post-discharge. Organizations should prioritize governance structures to unify patient messaging across platforms and ensure patient-centric communication.
• Healthcare organizations need true vendor partners: Being a true vendor partner means being deeply embedded into clinical workflows, being open to integration, and collaborating to solve systemic issues. Seattle Children’s partnered with Google to build AI-powered clinical pathway tools, which have led to more accurate and informed clinical decisions.
• Use AI for efficiency, safety, and equity: The panelists discussed early AI use cases (e.g., enhancing call center triage, streamlining communications) that have demonstrated meaningful clinical and operational outcomes. ROI from AI must be measured by clinical benefit, staff efficiency, and health equity—not just cost savings.

Key Takeaways:

• Start with people, not products: Rather than beginning with technology, healthcare innovation should begin with an understanding of patients’ real-life needs and challenges. Design technology solutions with patients.
• See patients as team members: Patients are not spectators in healthcare—they are essential players on the team and must be included from strategy to execution.
• Break down barriers to success through collaboration: In football, success requires every role, from coach to player, to be coordinated. In healthcare, the same trust and collaboration are needed across all stakeholders to achieve better patient outcomes.
• Be persistent and resilient: To see innovation in healthcare, stakeholders need to tenaciously challenge the status quo and push through systemic barriers.

Key Takeaways:

• Know the whole patient, not just their chart: Clinicians need to know patients beyond what is in their medical records—look at patients’ family histories, lifestyles, genetics, and social determinants of health.
• Missed opportunities undermine care: Disconnected systems, communication breakdowns, and logistical oversights (e.g., lack of transportation or patient education) can lead to preventable medical errors and poor patient experiences.
• AI must be humanized: Dr. Rab called healthcare organizations to use AI in more empathetic, intelligent ways, such as to anticipate patient needs, simplify workflows, and support clinicians.
• Design systems that support simplicity and user dignity: From appointment reminders to bathroom logistics, overlooked operational details can compound patient stress. Patient-centric systems consider basic comforts, cultural sensitivities, and clarity.
• Collaboration is core to patient care: Great care is built on trust, communication, and teamwork. Healthcare leaders and HIT vendors should exist in a collaborative ecosystem, not in silos, and design innovations that serve both their purpose and patients.

Successful Examples of Patient Centricity

Representatives from Epic, eVisit, PerfectServe, Tegria, Upfront, and Vital presented on how they have worked to implement patient centricity in their solutions.

Key Takeaways:

• Personalization and access: Tools like Epic MyChart, Upfront, and Vital can be tailored to an individual patient’s communication preferences and behaviors. Vendors should provide self-service capabilities, mobile capabilities, and multilingual accessibility.
• quity and inclusion: Presentations from Tegria and eVisit stressed that understanding a patient’s broader situation (e.g., social, emotional) is essential for true personalization. The representatives advocated for knowing patients through empathetic data use and design that bridges access barriers.
• Technology that serves patients and clinicians: The speakers repeatedly noted that technology needs to ease burdens, not add to them. In order to make patient-centric care scalable, vendor solutions should enable clinicians to focus on patient interactions rather than the administrative burden.