It was hard to get through a conversation about healthcare in 2025 without talking about technology—namely AI. Between scribes, voice agents, and diagnostic tools, we saw a lot of new developments in the industry (as well as worries about their unchecked growth).

Tech leaders spoke with Healthcare Brew about the biggest standout moments and trends for health tech companies this past year.

Seth Cohen, president, Cedar

The mounting affordability crisis is driving a transformation in the healthcare financial experience. The current systems that treat all patients the same are built for the past. Instead, we’ve entered a new navigation era where digital health solutions don’t just streamline payments.

This is what leaders had to say.—CM

We aren’t too proud to admit there’s a lot of reporting from other publications that makes us think, “Well, dang. I wish I’d thought of that!”

Here are some articles we read elsewhere that really resonated with us.

Why young Americans dread turning 26: Health insurance chaos by Elisabeth Rosenthal and Hannah Norman at KFF Health News

This story does a great job breaking down the experience of navigating health insurance as a young adult in America and explaining why it’s such a complex process. I wrote about the Affordable Care Act for our Quarter Century Project this year, and this piece by Rosenthal and Norman does a great job of showing how the act’s policies have played out in real-life scenarios.—MA

See the full list here.—NO

It’s no secret that the healthcare industry is a target for hackers, with hundreds of companies experiencing cybersecurity incidents each year.

Before the Change Healthcare cyberattack and the CrowdStrike outage in 2024, there were major attacks at Anthem, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, and UCLA Health Systems about 10 years prior that had set the industry ablaze. The trend was a wake-up call for providers who were increasingly using electronic health records but perhaps didn’t incorporate enough protections to keep patient data safe online.

Cyberattacks aren’t just invasive for patients—they’re also very costly. IBM reported last year, in fact, that healthcare data breaches cost an average of $9.8 million per incident.

These attacks were a lesson for the entire industry in 2015, and experts spoke with Healthcare Brew about how the approach to cybersecurity shifted after.

“The only thing that really moves the needle in cybersecurity is a high-profile attack,” Mark Stockley, a cybersecurity expert, said.

Cyberattacks from 10 years ago look very different.—CM