HIMSS 2026: What I’m Looking Forward to the 7th Time Around
HIMSS 2026 is right around the corner and unbelievably, it will be my seventh time attending, which feels worth shouting out because it really changes how you experience a conference like this. By year seven, you are no longer quite so overwhelmed by the scale, the noise, or the sheer number of promises and shouts floating around the Expo Hall. You start to notice patterns and what keeps resurfacing under new branding. You also notice which problems never seem to go away, no matter how advanced the technology becomes (looking at you, nurse staffing shortages).
This year feels different to me, and not because of the buzzwords or the size of the booths. It feels different because the conversations have finally caught up to the reality healthcare leaders have been living in for a while now. In an article I just wrote (you can find it here), I talk about staffing scrutiny and the growing expectations that healthcare leaders be able to explain and defend their decisions in real time, not months later with a stack of binders and good intentions.
That same pressure is shaping HIMSS 2026. Leaders are no longer asking what is possible but instead what is provable, repeatable, and sustainable when regulators, surveyors, and boards are asking hard questions. We want/need to know how technology will have our backs when the questions start rolling in, and we expect the vendors showing up in Las Vegas to have the answers we seek.
That framing is precisely why I am approaching HIMSS a little bit differently this time around.
I will be spending the majority of my time in the Expo Hall at the Ingram Micro booth alongside my friends at Process Street, and that is not accidental. The work I’m the most passionate and excited about right now sits at the intersection of regulation and operations, where the policies stop being theoretical and start colliding with the realities of nursing units, IT systems, staffing decisions, and general human behavior. That is where things either hold together or fall apart under scrutiny and the reality of our industry, like audits from regulatory agencies.
Joint Commission Readiness Workshops at HIMSS 2026
I’ll be hosting two Joint Commission readiness workshops with Process Street at the Ingram Micro booth, and these sessions are designed for people who carry real accountability (and stress!) during an audit. One workshop is built for nursing managers, leaders who are expected to answer for staffing decisions, competencies, and unit-level consistency while still keeping their patients safe and their teams functioning (and also safe, for the record, which is getting harder by the day – but that is a different conversation.) The other workshop is built for technology leaders who inherit the consequences of fragmented systems, unclear ownership, and manual processes that do not survive a survey.
These workshops are grounded in what actually happens during Joint Commission surveys, once the dreaded tone sounds overhead and everyone starts to scramble to their “battle stations” to prepare for the day. They are informed by tracer questions, by the gaps surveyors repeatedly find, and by the quiet panic that sets in when leaders realize the evidence they need exists somewhere, but not in a way that is easy to surface or defend when they are in the line of fire and faced with a question that suddenly feels impossible to answer.
We will be talking about how Joint Commission standards translate into daily work, how evidence gets created as part of operations instead of as a last-minute exercise, and how leaders can protect themselves and their teams by designing workflows that do not rely on memory or heroics. As I like to say, we want to help turn a Joint Commission audit into “just another Tuesday” through the power of automation.
Joint Commission Readiness – the Importance of Automation
What I continue to see across health systems, and what I expect to hear echoed throughout HIMSS this year, is a growing frustration with manual workarounds disguised as “process.” Spreadsheets, shared drives, email chains, Teams or Slack chats, and institutional knowledge still carry far too much regulatory risk. Surveyors are not interested in intent, and that won’t hold water in an audit. What you “meant” to do means nothing. They want consistency. They want traceability. They want to see how (and why) decisions were made, who owned them, and how issues were corrected over time. That’s why workflow has become such a critical conversation.
So, my money is on a lot of automation conversation in the HIMSS halls.
What AI Trends Will We See at HIMSS 2026?
HIMSS will also, naturally, be full of AI discussions. That is now expected when a few short years ago - back when HIMSS was still conveniently in my backyard in Orlando - it was still a taboo topic and healthcare leaders didn’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole.
What now feels new is how quickly those AI conversations now turn toward governance, accountability, and the inherent risk (both known and still as of yet unknown). Leaders want to know how automated decisions are monitored, how exceptions are handled, and how the outcomes are explained. They want technology that reduces exposure, not technology that introduces new questions they cannot answer, especially during a survey, since Joint Commission is never too far from healthcare executive's minds.
Now that AI has burst onto the scene in a big way, I am excited to see what the next “big thing” in healthcare tech will be because right now, I don’t have a guess, which is new for me! Personally, this is the kind of HIMSS I enjoy most, when there is a question mark on what innovation awaits our industry. I’m looking forward to connecting with fellow leaders who are done chasing tools and ready to redesign how work actually flows across nursing, HR, quality, administration, and IT. I’m also looking forward to vendors who understand that compliance is not a feature, but a behavior that has to be supported every single day.
But Will There Be Puppies???
And YES, the puppies will be there, and you already know where you can find me! At this point, they are part of my conference routine and a necessary reminder that not everything has to be heavy all the time. Long days, serious conversations, high stakes, and then puppies. It’s the best part of my week and provides the dopamine boost I need after spending a week in the windowless casino.
If you are attending HIMSS this year, I hope you will stop by the Ingram Micro booth in the Expo Hall and see me. Reach out and find out how you can join a workshop. Ask uncomfortable questions! Share what is not working in your organization and find out who is working on the next big idea that might help solve what is keeping you awake at night (or maybe spark the idea that could possibly do so). The most valuable conversations rarely happen on stages or in perfectly scripted demos; they happen when people are willing to be really honest about where the cracks are and willing to talk about how to possibly fix them.
Seven years into this conference life, I am more convinced than ever that healthcare has no shortage of big ideas. What we do need is better execution and systems that support people instead of testing their endurance to the point of exhaustion and burnout; we already know how fast clinicians are walking away from the bedside.
HIMSS 2026 feels like a place where that conversation isn’t afraid to take center stage, and I am here for it!
See you there!
About Improv
Dr. Sarah Inman is the Senior Vice President of Healthcare at Improv, where she leads strategic initiatives that help healthcare organizations optimize workforce management, scheduling, and operational performance.
Improv partners with hospitals, dental groups, and ambulatory care organizations to design sustainable workforce systems that reduce administrative burden, improve staff engagement, and enhance patient care outcomes. Dr. Inman’s work combines practical experience, data-driven insights, and a deep understanding of the human side of healthcare operations. You can learn more about the team at www.improvizations.com.
