Healthcare IT Trends to Know Before 2026

Healthcare technology is evolving at a pace that would’ve seemed impossible just a few years ago. From smart hospitals and connected medical devices to AI-powered diagnostics and remote patient monitoring, digital innovation is shifting how care is delivered and how healthcare IT teams operate. The next wave of healthcare IT trends will push infrastructure, security, and data systems further than ever before.

Behind every new device, platform, and digital workflow is a network that has to be fast, reliable, and secure. As healthcare environments become more connected through IoT and cloud-based systems, IT leaders are being asked to support more endpoints, more data, and more critical applications, all while minimizing emerging risks. This is where strong network visibility and proactive management become essential foundations for modern healthcare technology.

So what exactly should healthcare IT leaders be watching for as 2026 continues to unfold? Let’s take a look at the biggest trends shaping the future of healthcare IT.

Summary of 2026 trends:

1. AI-powered diagnostics and medical imaging: AI is reshaping how clinicians interpret scans and detect disease, helping radiologists and specialists identify urgent conditions faster and with greater accuracy.
2. Telehealth and virtual care platforms: Virtual care is now a permanent part of healthcare delivery, with hybrid care models, hospital-at-home programs, and digital-first patient experiences becoming the norm.
3. Remote patient monitoring and connected care: RPM is transforming chronic and post-acute care by enabling continuous monitoring at home, supported by connected devices and growing reimbursement models.
4. Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) and smart hospitals: Hospitals are deploying thousands of connected medical devices to improve patient safety, streamline operations, and gain real-time visibility into critical assets.
5. Healthcare cybersecurity and data privacy: As healthcare environments become more connected, protecting patient data and securing clinical systems is now a frontline patient safety priority.
6. Healthcare data interoperability and standardization: Regulatory pressure and care coordination demands are accelerating the push for standardized data formats and seamless data sharing between systems.
7. Wearables and connected health devices: Patient-owned wearables are expanding the volume of real-world health data available to clinicians, fueling new models of preventative and personalized care.
8. AI for clinical documentation and workflow automation: AI-powered documentation tools are reducing administrative burden, helping clinicians spend less time charting and more time with patients.
9. Digital training and upskilling for healthcare providers: As healthcare technology evolves, digital literacy is becoming a core clinical competency, driving investment in training and upskilling programs.

Top healthcare IT trends for 2026

#1: AI-powered diagnostics and medical imaging

AI is rapidly transforming how clinicians interpret medical images and detect disease. In radiology, pathology, cardiology, and oncology, AI-powered diagnostic tools are now being used to analyze scans, flag abnormalities, prioritize urgent cases, and support faster, more accurate diagnoses. What once required hours of manual review can now be processed in minutes, helping clinicians focus their time where it matters most: patient care.

Hospitals and health systems are already putting these tools into practice. For example, UCSF Health has deployed AI-powered imaging tools to help radiologists detect strokes, brain hemorrhages, and other critical conditions faster, improving response times for time-sensitive cases. Heading into 2026, AI diagnostics will continue expanding across imaging and clinical specialties, becoming a standard layer in care delivery. 

For healthcare IT leaders, that means supporting high-volume imaging data, real-time AI workloads, and always-on clinical systems that depend on fast, resilient, and secure network infrastructure.

#2: Telehealth and virtual care platforms

Telehealth has officially graduated from “pandemic workaround” to a permanent care model. Virtual visits, hybrid care workflows, and hospital-at-home programs are now baked into how healthcare systems operate. The global telemedicine market is projected to grow from $188.93 billion in 2026 to approximately $806.89 billion by 2035, expanding at a 17.55% CAGR, as healthcare systems look for scalable ways to deliver care beyond hospital walls. 

Health systems like Mass General Brigham have scaled hospital-at-home programs that deliver acute-level care remotely using a combination of virtual visits, remote monitoring, and in-home clinical services. Looking ahead to 2026, more care journeys will include a virtual component, new home-care safety and connectivity standards will emerge, and broadband access will increasingly determine who benefits from modern healthcare. 

For healthcare IT leaders, telehealth is now a core digital service that depends on secure connectivity, resilient networks, and rock-solid uptime.

#3: Remote patient monitoring and connected care

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) has been completely transforming chronic care and post-acute care delivery. Connected glucose monitors, cardiac sensors, blood pressure cuffs, and wearables are now standard tools for managing long-term conditions and supporting recovery at home. In the U.S. alone, the RPM market is projected to exceed $18 billion by 2026, growing at a 25% CAGR, fueled by rising chronic disease rates, expanded Medicare reimbursement, new medical billing codes, and the continued shift of care from hospitals to home settings.

For example, health systems like the Cleveland Clinic have expanded remote patient monitoring programs for chronic disease management and post-discharge care, helping clinicians track patient vitals from home while reducing hospital readmissions. Heading into 2026, AI will increasingly be used to surface only the most urgent and actionable alerts, focusing clinical attention where it matters most. 

In 2026, RPM will only become more central to care delivery, with healthcare IT teams being held responsible for supporting an ever-expanding ecosystem of connected medical devices and data streams.

#4: Internet of medical things (IoMT) and smart hospitals

Smart hospitals are no longer a futuristic concept. From connected infusion pumps and smart beds to asset-tracking systems and real-time location services, the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is transforming hospitals into highly digitized care environments. These connected devices help clinicians work faster, reduce manual processes, improve patient safety, and gain real-time visibility into everything from equipment availability to patient movement.

Hospitals are already seeing real results from IoMT deployments. In Canada, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton recently implemented a real-time medical equipment tracking platform that acts like a “find my phone” app for critical assets such as specialized beds and IV poles. The system delivered a 100% asset reconciliation rate, helping staff find equipment faster, reduce patient delays, and improve overall hospital efficiency. Looking ahead, IoMT deployments will continue to scale across clinical, operational, and facilities management use cases, often adding tens of thousands of connected devices per site. 

For healthcare IT leaders, that means the network is no longer just supporting computers and servers. It’s supporting life-saving equipment, clinical workflows, and real-time patient care.

#5: Healthcare cybersecurity and data privacy

This year, cybersecurity and patient privacy are moving to the very top of the IT priority list. Electronic health records, telehealth platforms, IoMT devices, and cloud-based clinical systems have dramatically expanded the healthcare attack surface. At the same time, regulations like HIPAA and HITECH continue to raise the bar for how patient data must be protected, audited, and reported. 

We’re already seeing the real-world impact of security gaps. A staggering 32% of all recorded data breaches occur in the healthcare sector, and the fallout is severe. In 2025, Yale New Haven Health agreed to an $18 million settlement following a data breach that exposed the personal and medical information of more than 5.5 million patients, making it one of the largest healthcare data breaches of the year. The incident stemmed from unauthorized access to its network and led to multiple lawsuits alleging inadequate cybersecurity safeguards. 

As healthcare environments become more connected through IoMT and remote care, the network itself becomes a frontline defense. For healthcare IT leaders, that means visibility, segmentation, monitoring, and rapid incident response are more important than ever before.

#6: Healthcare data interoperability and standardization

Healthcare data interoperability is all about making sure patient information can move securely and seamlessly between systems, providers, and care settings. For years, electronic health records, lab systems, imaging platforms, and specialty applications have lived in separate silos, making it harder for clinicians to get a complete picture of a patient’s history. Heading into 2026, regulatory pressure and care coordination demands are accelerating the push toward standardized data formats and open APIs so information can finally flow where it’s needed.

Organizations like Intermountain Health have implemented enterprise-wide data integration platforms that connect EHRs, clinical systems, and analytics tools across hospitals and outpatient facilities. The goal is to give clinicians real-time access to the right data at the right moment. 

Looking ahead, healthcare IT teams will be responsible for supporting a growing web of integrations, APIs, and data exchanges that depend on reliable connectivity, secure access, and always-on network performance. When data can move freely and safely, care gets better, faster, and more coordinated.

#7: Wearables and connected health devices

Are wearables blurring the lines between consumer tech and clinical care? Devices like smartwatches, fitness trackers, biosensors, and even smart clothing now collect continuous biometric data (heart rate, activity levels, sleep, oxygen saturation, and more) that can be shared with clinicians or used to feed digital care platforms. This shift means healthcare is increasingly informed by data generated outside the clinic, giving providers richer insights into patients’ everyday health patterns. 

Clinical and research communities are actively exploring how these devices can improve care. Recent evidence shows wearable devices can support real-time monitoring that facilitates early disease detection, enables personalized treatment, and enhances patient engagement by allowing clinicians to act on real-world data outside traditional visits. 

In 2026, wearables will play a growing role in preventative care and population health, amplifying the volume and variety of patient-generated health data. For healthcare IT leaders, this means planning ahead for secure, scalable data pipelines, policies for integrating patient-generated data into care systems, and new strategies to balance innovation with privacy and connectivity.

#8: AI for clinical documentation and workflow automation

Clinical documentation has long been one of the biggest drivers of burnout in healthcare, with 58% of physicians agreeing it limits the time they spend with patients. Physicians and nurses can spend hours each day on notes, charting, and administrative tasks, often after their shifts end. AI-powered documentation tools are changing that by automatically transcribing visits, generating clinical notes, summarizing patient histories, and helping streamline workflows across care teams.

For example, Dr. Paul Scholten, a physiatrist in Minnesota, shares in this Mayo Clinic report how these tools have significantly reduced his documentation workload and cognitive burden. Instead of spending time dictating and editing after visits, he’s able to stay focused on patients and move through his day with less administrative friction. 

Heading into 2026, AI-powered documentation is expected to become a standard layer in clinical workflows, and healthcare IT teams will be responsible for supporting the real-time audio processing, cloud AI platforms, and secure integrations that make it all possible.

#9: Digital training and upskilling for healthcare providers

From telehealth platforms and AI-powered diagnostics to connected medical devices and advanced EHR systems, clinicians are being asked to work with more tools, more data, and more digital workflows than ever before. To keep pace, healthcare companies are beginning to invest in digital training and upskilling programs that help providers build confidence with new technologies and use them safely, effectively, and efficiently.

For example, large organizations like Kaiser Permanente have launched upskilling initiatives to support clinicians as new tools are rolled out across their care environments. Looking ahead to 2026, digital literacy will become a core competency for healthcare professionals. 

For healthcare IT leaders, that means supporting secure access to training platforms, enabling reliable collaboration tools, and ensuring the underlying network infrastructure can support learning in fast-moving clinical environments.

Emerging future trends in healthcare IT & informatics

The pace of healthcare innovation isn’t slowing down anytime soon. As digital care models mature and data becomes more central to clinical decision-making, the next five years will bring even bigger changes to how healthcare organizations design, operate, and secure their technology environments. 

Here are a few emerging trends healthcare IT leaders should keep on their radar:

• AI-driven clinical decision support: AI will move beyond diagnostics into real-time clinical guidance, helping providers make faster, more informed treatment decisions at the point of care.
• Predictive and preventative care powered by analytics: Advanced analytics and informatics will enable earlier risk detection, proactive interventions, and more personalized care plans.
• Autonomous and self-healing infrastructure: Healthcare networks and systems will increasingly use AI to detect issues, optimize performance, and resolve problems automatically before users notice an impact.
• 5G-enabled healthcare environments: High-speed, low-latency connectivity will reveal new use cases for mobile imaging, robotics, remote surgery, and ultra-reliable IoMT deployments.
• Privacy-first data architectures: New approaches to data security, consent management, and identity protection will emerge to support large-scale data sharing without compromising patient trust.
• Digital twins for hospitals and care systems: Virtual replicas of physical facilities and care environments will be used to model patient flow, optimize operations, and simulate clinical scenarios.

How Auvik helps you address the challenges of emerging healthcare technology

Every trend shaping the future of healthcare—from telehealth and remote monitoring to IoMT, AI, and interoperability—has one thing in common. It puts more pressure on your network. More connected devices. More endpoints. More real-time data. More critical applications that can’t afford downtime. As healthcare environments grow more complex, IT teams are being asked to support life-critical systems with non-negotiable expectations for speed, reliability, and availability.

That’s where strong network visibility and proactive management become essential. Auvik gives healthcare IT teams a clear, real-time view of what’s happening across their network, helping you monitor connected devices, detect performance issues before they impact care, and enhance network security at the root. Whether you’re supporting virtual care platforms, remote monitoring programs, smart hospital infrastructure, or AI-powered clinical systems, Auvik helps you keep the foundation running smoothly, so clinicians can stay focused on their patients.

Help futureproof your healthcare IT infrastructure with Auvik

The future of healthcare is more connected, more digital, and more data-driven than ever before. From virtual care and remote monitoring to smart hospitals, AI-powered workflows, and interoperable data platforms, every innovation depends on a network that is secure, resilient, and always available. As healthcare technology continues to evolve, IT leaders need visibility, control, and confidence in the systems that support patient care.

Auvik helps you stay ahead of the curve with real-time network visibility, proactive monitoring, endpoint insight, and SaaS management—so you can reduce risk, prevent bottlenecks, and keep critical systems running smoothly. Whether you’re supporting clinical teams, rolling out new digital care models, or scaling connected infrastructure, Auvik helps ensure your network is ready for whatever comes next.

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