

Patient & Consumer Innovation Summit 2025
In April 2025, KLAS hosted the fourth Patient and Consumer Innovation (PCI) Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah. This event brought together a diverse group of thought leaders from health systems and healthcare IT (HIT) vendors as well as patient representatives, who are at the heart of this summit. During the event, attendees engaged in meaningful discussions about what it means for healthcare to be patient-centric. This summit overview summarizes insights gathered from pre-summit surveys conducted by KLAS as well as the event’s panels and keynote addresses.
The KLAS Playbook for Patient-Centric Care
The 2025 PCI Summit also resulted in the creation of the first-ever KLAS Playbook for Patient-Centric Care, which is built on feedback gathered via the pre-summit surveys, ideas shared in the summit discussions, and insights from previous KLAS events. While healthcare organizations are striving to be patient-centric, many feel there isn’t a structured framework to guide decisions across leadership, clinical teams, technology design, and patient communications. The KLAS Playbook for Patient-Centric Care provides strategies that can help organizations deliver a seamless, patient-centric experience across the care continuum. The playbook examines barriers to patient-centric care as well as proven innovations and “plays” organizations can implement to address those barriers and empower patients in their care journeys. To learn more, see the full playbook.
PRE-SUMMIT SURVEY
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.
SUMMIT PANELS
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.
SUMMIT KEYNOTE ADDRESSESS
Beyond the Playbook—The Value of an Innovation Mindset in Healthcare
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.
Beauty Lies in the Eyes of the Beholder
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.
Confluence Health & the KLAS Patient Voice Collaborative
Dr. Becket Mahnke and Josh Wood presented on Confluence Health’s initiative to redesign care delivery through increased digital patient engagement. The initiative was guided partly by insights from KLAS’ reports and Patient Voice Collaborative as well as by a patient experience survey. The organization received about 8,000 survey responses, which highlighted Confluence’s strengths (e.g., usable tools) and opportunities (e.g., telehealth, cost estimates, provider search). Additionally, to better understand the complexity of and variability in patient experiences, Confluence created three relatable fictional personas:
Emily: A healthy, tech-savvy mother
Simon: An immigrant father with language and financial barriers
Martina: An elderly widow with chronic conditions
Now, when making care decisions, Confluence’s clinicians can use these personas to help them think beyond general demographic categories and create personalized care plans that will improve the specific patient’s engagement and health outcomes. Further, Confluence has found that by asking patients to take on more digital tasks (e.g., self-check-in, post-care management), patients feel more engaged and feel the technology has improved their health outcomes. Going forward, the organization will continue to focus on engaging underrepresented groups and measuring the impact of digital patient engagement.
KLAS SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS
During the summit, KLAS held two breakout discussions that featured our in-house subject matter experts, whose expertise ranges from established areas like value-based care to emerging topics like ambient speech. See below for summaries of topics discussed, including current challenges and goals for the future state.
Contact KLAS subject matter experts: aurene.wilford@klasresearch.com, benjamin.cassity@klasresearch.com, bradley.hunter@klasresearch.com, don.seamons@klasresearch.com, emily.paxman@klasresearch.com, everton.santos@klasresearch.com, mac.boyter@klasresearch.com, monique.rasband@klasresearch.com, trey.dye@klasresearch.com
Current Challenges
Patient engagement is still fragmented: Once a buzzword, patient engagement is now a strategic accelerator, but many organizations still lack a unified, cross-departmental strategy. Tools like CRMs and patient portals are often underused due to insufficient infrastructure and fragmented ownership, which can lead to an inconsistent user experience. The next phase of patient engagement requires coordinated governance and integration across clinical, financial, and marketing functions.
Misaligned value-based care and SDOH strategies: Despite growing momentum, adoption of value-based care and social determinants of health (SDOH) strategies is often stalled by misaligned incentives, difficulty quantifying ROI, and inconsistent reimbursement models. Success in these areas requires visionary leadership, a rethinking of ROI, and better alignment between payer and clinical strategies.
Difficulty closing the loop for patients: While community-based programs (e.g., food banks, transportation services, remote care) show promise, healthcare organizations still struggle to close the loop and ensure patients can access those programs and have their needs met. Clinicians and other healthcare teams need to be better educated about these programs and build stronger partnerships with community-based organizations.
AI is ubiquitous but under-operationalized: AI is at the forefront of conversations across healthcare specialties. However, many use cases remain in “pilot purgatory” as stakeholders are concerned about scaling due to infrastructure gaps, siloed strategies, or lack of operational support. Organizations need to push beyond the promise of AI to achieve tangible outcomes for patients, clinicians, and operations.
Challenges achieving proactive, integrated, equitable care: There is a future where patient engagement is amplified by gamified health education, data-sharing incentives, predictive outreach, and voice-first technology. However, challenges such as privacy concerns, difficulty building trust, and unethical uses of AI must be addressed before unlocking the technology’s full potential.
Future State
Evolving approaches to patient/member engagement: Health plans are beginning to leverage AI to re-engage transient or hard-to-reach members, and organizations are also empowering pharmacists to close care gaps. As strategies for patient engagement continue to evolve, they should still emphasize the importance of meeting patients where they are—physically, emotionally, and digitally—and be personalized, data-driven, and rooted in real-time patient communication channels.
Increased patient financial engagement: Integrating services (e.g., pre-service estimates, payment plans, test-to-pay models) that increase financial transparency within the patient care journey can simplify the billing process and reduce surprise costs. Payer organizations should also be actively involved in the financial conversation to align incentives and improve trust in cost estimates.
Ambient documentation: This transformative technology, powered by generative AI, has streamlined clinicians’ documentation, enabling them to engage more meaningfully with patients and feel less burned out. Notably, AI-generated notes—which can be translated into a patient’s language and reading level—are enhancing health literacy and patient empowerment, especially for underserved populations. (For a look at vendor performance in this space, see KLAS’ recent Ambient Speech report.)
Consumer-grade, proactive, and collaborative healthcare: KLAS’ subject matter experts called for a transformation in the healthcare digital experience. Ideally, the healthcare digital experience would be as seamless as booking travel and built on proactive, personalized outreach, clearer service options (especially in imaging), and greater cross-system collaboration.
Global patient engagement models: Internationally, family members often act as primary caregivers, driving the adoption of care coordination tools that accommodate caregiver access to patient portals. This contrasts with Western models and emphasizes culturally attuned patient centricity, including shared decision-making with family networks.
A Fireside Chat About the Patient Experience
During this fireside chat, Christopher Ross and Edward Marx shared their personal cancer journeys, noting that becoming patients exposed them to the emotional intensity and structural deficiencies of healthcare. They also stressed that true understanding of the patient experience often comes only through firsthand experience. Most patients don’t know that they have the right to ask questions and get second opinions. Patients need to be better educated in order to take charge of their own care.
Ross and Marx share more about their healthcare experiences in their book, Diagnosed: An Insider’s Guide for Your Healthcare Journey.
VENDOR PRESENTATIONS
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.
Thank You to Healthcare Experts & Influencers
KLAS thanks the following industry leaders for providing short video responses, which were played during the summit. These responses shared the leaders’ perspectives on patient-centric technologies as well as examples of consumer-friendly technologies from outside healthcare that they want to see implemented.
- Adam Turinas
- Britt Berrett
- Caroline D. Brown
- Colin Hung
- Dr. Geeta Nayyar, MD, MBA
- Jared Jeffery, MBA, FACHDM
- Jared Johnson
- Laura Cooley, PhD
- Mike Mosquito, CHCIO, MBA, PMP, CDH-E
We Need to Listen to Patients
The summit attendees made a unified and passionate call for healthcare transformation to begin, not end, with patients and caregivers. Specifically, they highlighted the transformative power of truly listening to patients—validating their experiences and involving them meaningfully in solution design. Patients are the experts in their own lives and thus are essential teammates in the care field. To truly change the game in healthcare, organizations and patients must work together, centering change around the human experience and reimagining what is possible. For guidance on how to accomplish this, KLAS encourages all to read the KLAS Playbook for Patient-Centric Care, which is intended as a companion resource to this summit overview.
SUMMIT ATTENDEES
Healthcare Organizations
Angella Herrman, Systems Informatics Manager, University of Kansas Health System
Dr. Anshu Abhat, Director of Patient Engagement, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services
Becket Mahnke, CMIO, Confluence Health Bert Compton, Director of Digital Strategy, University of Utah Health
Britney Klaetsch-Gravell, Digital Transformation Program Manager, University of Utah Health
Chelsea Landon, Director of Health System Emerging Strategies, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Christy Benson, Associate Director of Information Technology Services, University of Utah Health
Cindy Whitehead, Senior VP of IT, Apps, Data Integrations, and Partnerships, Premise Health
Craig Norquist, CMIO, Honor Health
Dianne Novak, VP of Consumer Experience and Digital Health, Atrium Health
Dustin Boreson, Marketing Department Manager, Confluence Health
Eduardo Bier de Araujo Correa, President, Hospital Moinhos de Vento
Emily Kapszukiewicz, CX and Innovation Advisor, Centra Health (Advisor)
Jane Sims, Manager of Patient Education, Intermountain Health
Dr. John Joe, Director, St. Luke’s Health
Josh Wood, VP of Digital Engagement, Confluence Health
Kevin Sowti, Medical Director of Hospital Medicine, Penn Medicine
Kimberly Lane, Executive Director of Home Health and Hospice, Banner Health
Kristina Belk, Director of Performance Management Strategy Office, Gillette Children’s
Laura Marquez, Senior Director of Digital Transformation, University of Utah Health
Mari Ransco, Senior Director of Patient Experience, University of Utah Health
Mark Rhodes, IT AVP of Consumer Technology, Atrium Health
Megan Sandin, Project Manager, Gillette Children’s
Mohamed Payeq Parrini Mutlaq, CEO, Hospital Moinhos de Vento
Natasha Bartz, Senior Patient Access Educator, Gillette Children’s
Novlet Mattis, CDIO, Orlando Health
Rita Ogden, Executive Director of Patient Services, UCSF Health
Shafiq Rab, EVP, Chief Digital Information Officer & System CIO, Tufts Medicine
Sri Bharadwaj, COO/CIO, Longevity Health Plan
Dr. Steve Schiebel, CMIO, Allegro Pediatrics
Dr. Timothy Shiuh, Chief Health Information Officer and VP of Digital Clinical Transformation, ChristianaCare
Travis Gregory, Associate Chief of Applications Offices, University of Utah Health
Zafar Chaudry, Senior VP, Chief of Digital and AI, CIO, Seattle Children’s
Vendors
Alexandra Lincoln, VP of Digital Acquisition and Retention, Nordic
Amy Lee, VP, Head of Marketing, eVisit
Brian Van Wyk, Patient Experience, Epic
Dan Mowery, Director of Marketing, IKS Health
Justin Schrager, Chief Medical Officer and Co-founder, Vital
Katie Byrd , Director of CareSignal Client Success, Lightbeam Health Solutions
Kelly Conklin, Chief Clinical and Chief Customer Officer, PerfectServe
Kristal Wittmann, Director of Access and Experience, Tegria
Maggie Stack, Product Informatics, Epic
Margaret Enright, VP of Consumer Experience and Strategy, Upfront by Health Catalyst
Nate Allen, Senior Director of Customer Success, eVisit
Sarah Bennight, Senior VP of Marketing, IKS Health
Spencer Adams, Vice President, Lightbeam Health Solutions
Taylor Seale, Software Developer, Epic
Tye Cook, Head of Strategic Business Development, Tegria
Patient & Industry Leaders
Aaron Bentley, CIO, Salt Lake City
Ami Cragun, Patient Leader
Christopher Ross, Senior Advisor, Insight Partners
Edward Marx, CEO, Marx Advisory
Erica Olenski, AVP, FINN Partners
Kristy Dickinson, Principal, Kristy Dickinson Consulting
Writer
Natalie Hopkins

Designer
Nikki Christensen

Project Manager
Rachel Marchant
This material is copyrighted. Any organization gaining unauthorized access to this report will be liable to compensate KLAS for the full retail price. Please see the KLAS DATA USE POLICY for information regarding use of this report. © 2025 KLAS Research, LLC. All Rights Reserved. NOTE: Performance scores may change significantly when including newly interviewed provider organizations, especially when added to a smaller sample size like in emerging markets with a small number of live clients. The findings presented are not meant to be conclusive data for an entire client base.