January 2026 is coming up quickly, and after instability in 2025, hospital executives are already gearing up for another busy year.

Experts spoke with Healthcare Brew about their predictions and hopes for what they’d like to accomplish in 2026.

John D’Angelo, president and CEO, Northwell Health

Our industry must leverage AI and sophisticated data analytics to revolutionize proactive patient engagement, identifying needs for crucial screenings like lung cancer and colonoscopies and seamlessly integrating connected, 24/7 virtual care with traditional primary care models.

As we move to the not-too-distant future, AI-driven platforms will be able to detect subtle, preclinical indicators of conditions like diabetes, hypertension, or stroke precursors, vastly improving early intervention and outcomes. Furthermore, AI and digitally empowered solutions are vital for future care models, particularly for an aging global population, enabling home-based care teams to monitor patients and become a true partner in maintaining health and wellness.

Here’s what leaders had to say.—CM

We’re nothing without our loyal readers (yes, you!), so we wanted to highlight some of your favorite stories from the past year.

Here are our top 20 stories from 2025.

20. Here are the 20 biggest healthcare deals so far in 2025

19. Aetna’s new specialty drug policy ‘insidious’ for infusion centers, one leader says

18. Union pressures Kaiser Permanente to restart surgeries for trans youth

17. Prior authorization gold cards might need a new prescription

16. Now that digital therapeutics have Medicare coverage, the real test begins

15. Walgreens sells to private equity firm Sycamore Partners

See the rest of the list here.—NO

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, medical supply shortages got so severe that nurses fashioned masks and gowns out of pool noodles and trash bags.

Many factors have been blamed: inadequate stockpiles, slow government action, equipment hoarding. But one that has been especially relevant—and is relevant again today as international tensions heat up—is US reliance on foreign personal protective equipment (PPE), supply chain experts told us.

The government invested more than $1 billion to bulk up domestic PPE manufacturing during that first pandemic year, but five years later, the companies that emerged from those efforts have mostly shut down, and the US still relies heavily on foreign manufacturers for PPE and other medical necessities. The American Hospital Association calculated in April the US imported over $75 billion in medical devices and supplies in 2024 alone.

Some experts worry this means the next public health emergency could send the country right back to March 2020.

“If we don’t change the trajectory we are in right now, we’re guaranteed to repeat the same thing,” Tinglong Dai, Bernard T. Ferrari professor of business at Johns Hopkins University, told Healthcare Brew.

Are we destined to repeat history?—CC