Every year, AMGA's Annual Conference brings together physicians, executives, and innovators who are actively shaping what the future of healthcare delivery looks like. This year's gathering at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas drew more than 1,300 attendees, and if the energy in the room was any indication, healthcare is at a genuine inflection point. Here's what stood out.
The AI Conversation Has Changed
The opening keynote set the tone for the rest of the conference.
Daniel Kraft, MD — physician, scientist, and healthcare futurist — kicked things off with a rapid-fire breakdown of where AI is showing up in healthcare today across the care continuum: clinical decision support, diagnostic imaging, ambient documentation, consumer wearables, and well beyond. The pace of the presentation matched the pace of the technology itself.
But what stood out to me most wasn't the content. It was the response in the room.
At this same conference only a year ago, I remember AI being met with cautious excitement and a fair amount of skepticism. There was a strong desire to put AI in a box — to ringfence its application to where there was comfort. Note-taking. Appointment scheduling. Workflow efficiency. Things that kept AI largely behind the scenes, tidying up the administrative edges of care delivery. And that made sense. It’s a reasonable place to start, and the efficiency gains here alone are substantial.
This year, that comfort zone has clearly expanded. AI as a workflow tool still dominates the conversation, and systems are rapidly investing in those gains. But health systems are broadening their definition of what AI can be used for. The question is no longer just "how do we make our people more efficient?" It's becoming "how do we use this to change what's possible in care?"
That shift came through clearly in Dr. Kraft's keynote. There was an almost casual acceptance in the room that signaled the industry has moved from “should we” to “how do we.” Instead of the cautious optimism I sensed last year, this year felt more like shared curiosity about scope and execution.
The Posters That Lined the Halls
One of the things I look forward to at AMGA is the poster presentations. That’s where the real, on-the-ground innovation surfaces. This year's submissions did not disappoint. Systems like Henry Ford, Northwell, and Mayo Clinic were among those represented, sharing the work they're doing to move the needle on some of healthcare's hardest problems.
One poster in particular caught our attention: Eventus WholeHealth's presentation, "Mind Matters: Elevating Brain Health in Primary Care." The poster detailed the AMGA Brain Health Quality Improvement Initiative, a collaboration with four health care organizations focused on earlier identification and diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD).
The numbers are worth noting: MCI is estimated to affect over 15% of adults over 50, and ADRD is the sixth leading cause of death for adults aged 65 and older. Yet time-constrained clinical encounters, inconsistent documentation of cognitive symptoms, administrative burden, and patient hesitancy to report concerns all create significant barriers to timely detection.
The initiative tracked four measures across participating health care organizations: the proportion of patients receiving cognitive assessments during primary care visits, referral rates to brain health specialists, and new diagnoses of MCI and ADRD. Early findings showed substantial variation across systems — cognitive screening rates ranged from 1% to 64.5% at baseline — underscoring just how much room there is to improve. Interventions across the four organizations included provider and staff education, standardization of digital screening tools, strengthened referral pathways, and care pathway development to support consistent diagnosis across sites.
Creyos is supporting Eventus WholeHealth in this work through our cognitive assessment tools, and seeing their initiative recognized at the conference was a highlight. It is clear that earlier detection changes outcomes, and the work Eventus is doing to systematically embed that detection into routine primary care visits is exactly the kind of initiative that drives real change at scale.
Value-Based Care: The Vision Holds, the Path Is Hard
I spent a lot of my time at AC26 in sessions exploring two areas that are changing rapidly in healthcare: value-based care and technology adoption.
On the VBC front, a session led by Stephen Nuckolls, CEO of Coastal Carolina Quality Care, was one of the most candid conversations I've sat in on in a long time. Nuckolls didn't sugarcoat it: value-based care promised better outcomes, lower costs, stronger patient engagement. And for many systems, the reality of implementation has consistently fallen short of that promise.
What came through clearly was that belief in VBC's underlying principles remains strong. Healthcare leaders understand that this model is designed to be better for patients and for the long-term sustainability of their organizations. The disconnect isn't philosophical. It's operational and financial. The rules keep changing, the risk structures are complex, and systems are trying to build toward a destination that keeps shifting underneath them. The sentiment in the room was less "this doesn't work" and more "we need steadier ground to build on." That's an important distinction, and it's one the field should keep pushing to communicate clearly to policymakers.
AI in Action: Capability Is Only Half the Story
If the opening keynote confirmed that the attitude toward AI has shifted, a packed session from UChicago Medicine confirmed that the action is already underway. It was standing room only, which was itself a signal: the room has moved, decisively, from "what is AI and why do I need it?" to "how do I make this work in my organization?"
Phillip Quick, Chief System Access Operations Officer, and Tyler Bauer, SVP of System Ambulatory Operations, walked attendees through UChicago Medicine's implementation of Salesforce's Agentforce for Health — an agentic AI platform enabling 24/7 patient self-service for appointment scheduling, prescription refills, insurance verification, and even real-time logistical support like parking guidance. By automating high-volume, routine tasks, UChicago Medicine is freeing its staff to focus on higher-value interactions and building infrastructure for scalable, digital-first care delivery.
What made this session stand out wasn't just the technology — it was the honesty. The presenters were transparent about the realities of change management inside a large academic health system, and they shared both wins and the hard-earned lessons. Their takeaways were clear: intent to adopt new tools is meaningless without a strong framework for implementation and buy-in at every level of the organization, from leadership to the healthcare professionals whose daily workflows are directly affected.
That resonated with me, because it reflects something we hold as core to how Creyos partners with our customers. Deploying a tool is the beginning, not the finish line. We're not successful when we hand something over. We're successful when it's actually used, when clinical teams feel supported, and when patients are better for it. That requires investment in the full adoption journey, from onboarding through workflow integration, training, and ongoing partnership. Hearing the UChicago Medicine team describe the same philosophy from the health system side, while a standing-room-only crowd leaned in, was a good reminder that the industry is aligned on this.
Looking Ahead
This year’s conference felt like a turning point. AI has found its footing in these conversations, the hard realities of value-based care are being named out loud, and systems doing innovative work in areas like brain health are getting the attention they deserve.
I left Las Vegas energized (despite taking the red-eye home). I’m excited by the work happening across the AMGA community, by the partners we're proud to support, and by the shared commitment to making healthcare better for the professionals who deliver it and the patients who depend on it. The Creyos team is already looking forward to Chicago in 2027.
