Along with the presence of the CHIME community, ViVE offers an opportunity for more than 8,000 health leaders—including a sizable number of C-suite executives—to engage in operational and “from the heart” exchanges shaping a long-awaited sector transformation – from fragmented to fluid.

Nashville, celebrated nationally as Music City and an epicenter of health innovation, may play a Swiss-like role in the much-needed shift that must happen sooner rather than later. It is a city of possibilities and a health community built around purpose, entrepreneurial energy, and a collaborative mindset.  If changes in the health system are remotely possible, it is because the town’s ” vibe ” is inclusive and built on realizing dreams and hopes.

At ViVE, the conversation around Artificial Intelligence (AI) has evolved dramatically during the past four meetings. What was once speculative hocus-pocus is now embraced as essential and operational. AI is often mischaracterized as “artificial intelligence.” The correct term that should be applied to the reality of its integration in the workflow is “augmented implementation,” a tool that amplifies human capabilities rather than replacing them. This distinction is key to understanding that AI fits into the health ecosystem’s future, where precision, trust, and efficiency converge.

A recent report from MarketsandMarkets states that the AI in healthcare market size is estimated to surge from USD 20.9 billion in 2024 to USD 148.4 billion by 2029.

The Evolution from Theory to Practice

Reflecting on previous ViVE conferences, the discussion around AI was theoretical and focused on potential applications, ethical considerations, and integration challenges. At ViVE 2025, that narrative continues to head in a focused endpoint direction. AI advancements through ChatGPT and large language models (LLMs) are a given asset embedded in health workflow.

Sessions now showcase real-world applications, from AI-driven clinical decision support to streamlined administrative processes and enhanced patient engagement. The focus is no longer on possibility but on action—how organizations can effectively harness AI to improve outcomes and efficiency in care and cost.

Addressing Cost Inefficiencies and Workflow Optimization

The buzz on the stage and exhibit hall is a common message. One of the most critical aspects of AI integration into health is its potential to address repetitive actions and overcome systemic challenges. Leveraging AI and data analytics, health professionals can identify disease and diagnostic possibilities that escape their training eye and imagination, reduce cost inefficiencies, and optimize health system workflows – from procedure and patient scheduling to finding correct billing codes.

AI-driven insights enable a more equitable distribution of resources, ensuring that underserved populations receive the care they need when needed. Moreover, automating administrative tasks should free up time for clinicians, reducing burnout and allowing them to focus on patient-centered care.

Major Players Accelerate AI Adoption

Industry giants like Amazon, Epic, Microsoft, and Oracle are propelling the rapid integration of AI into health care. These companies are not just developing AI tools that others use as platforms but fostering collaborations to ensure seamless integration within existing health infrastructures.

Amazon: With a strategic investment of up to $4 billion in Anthropic, Amazon is expanding its generative AI capabilities within Amazon Web Services (AWS). Its initiative aims to equip health organizations with advanced AI-driven tools to enhance patient care and operational efficiency.

Epic: Beyond its Microsoft partnership, Epic continues to lead in AI integration, ensuring providers can access cutting-edge tools to improve clinical decision-making and patient engagement.

Microsoft: To deepen collaboration with Epic, Microsoft has embedded its Azure OpenAI Service into the Epic electronic health record (EHR) software. This integration enables generative AI tools to optimize clinical workflows, reduce administrative burdens, and enhance decision-making.

Oracle: Recognizing AI transformative potential, Oracle has introduced generative AI tools within its EHR systems. These tools automate routine tasks, allowing health professionals to devote more time to patient care.

Entrepreneurial Companies Driving Change

ViVE is not only about the industry’s most prominent health IT players coming together under one roof but also a platform where entrepreneurial companies push the industry forward. Smaller AI-driven start-ups and health tech service providers function as a pipeline for innovation, capturing media attention and influencing companies’ mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and investment strategies.

Here are three companies that started small and have become sector change agents:  

Abridge: In February 2025, Abridge raised a $250 million Series D investment that now has the company valued at $2.5 billion. This funding supports deploying their AI-driven clinical documentation platform across more than 100 health systems, including prominent institutions like Duke Health, Johns Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, and UNC Health. The investment also fuels the development of its new Contextual Reasoning Engine, designed to produce billable clinical notes at the point of care, streamlining workflows and reducing administrative burdens.

Cohere Health: Cohere Health is a clinical intelligence company transforming the prior authorization process. By leveraging artificial intelligence, Cohere streamlines administrative paperwork, expediting patient access to necessary care. Their mission is to simplify health by fostering collaboration among patients, physicians, and health plans, ensuring the proper care is delivered promptly and effectively.

Qventus: In January 2024, Qventus announced a $105 million Series D investment led by powerhouse KKR, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and investors such as Northwestern Medicine, HonorHealth and Allina Health. This funding aims to enhance Qventus AI-based care automation software, optimizing hospital operations by predicting patient flow and reducing inefficiencies that impact revenues.

These entrepreneurial players—now operating at scale and resourced—challenge industry norms and encourage the mega information players to rethink how their platforms can be the “Intel-inside” service provider systems.

Collaboration is the Catalyst for Innovation

The true power of AI in health emerges from collaboration. Collaboration among technology leaders and health institutions drives innovation, ensuring AI solutions address real-world challenges. That has been a clear message during ViVE 2025.

The Microsoft-Epic collaboration is a driver in integrating AI within EHRs to analyze vast datasets, providing clinicians with actionable insights that improve patient care. Similarly, the Amazon investment in Anthropic is advancing generative AI to enhance health operations. These alliances demonstrate how combining technological expertise with health knowledge leads to breakthrough solutions.

ViVE has become a welcoming platform for fostering these collaborations, bringing health and technology leaders together to discuss AI’s practical applications. The 2025 meeting agenda reflects this focus, offering hands-on sessions that provide attendees with tangible AI implementation strategies and case studies.

The Future of Augmented Implementation in Health

The “augmented implementation” concept is more relevant than ever as we stand at the intersection of technology and health – and a new Administration pushing AI as an elixir for what ails the industry and US global competitiveness. While many wonder whether AI will replace human expertise, there is little debate about whether it will enable more transparent decision-making and efficient care delivery.

The shift from theoretical discussion to practical application has been faster than expected, fueled by collaboration, innovation, and a shared hope for improved patient care. The AI footprint in health will continue to expand, and its success will depend on maintaining a balance between technological advancement and human-centered care.

ViVE is a time capsule of obstacles, anxieties, and health system progress integrated with our combined wisdom into practice. Conversations continue to evolve, collaborations deepen, and applications become more practical. As we continue to embrace “augmented implementation,” the future of health is encouraging—where technology amplifies human potential and delivers unparalleled value to patients and providers alike. ViVE continues to be a place for open, candid exchange.

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ViVE wisely returns to Nashville and marks the third time “Music City” hosts this conversational community.  The city can rightly declare itself the nation’s capital of health provider service innovation.  Home to more than 900 health-related companies, including giants like Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Meharry Medical College, and LifePoint Health, and investment firms such as Cressey & Company, Nashville is a beacon of digital health and provider transformation, and ViVE, making the “Health Hub” home base is an added proof point.  

Rich Scarfo, president of HLTH, spoke about ViVE 2025 and Nashville: “We’re excited that ViVE is back in Nashville because I think it’s sort of a testament not only to our city’s ability to host conferences of that scale but really our status as a healthcare hub and our growing concentration of healthcare technology companies.”

Nashville: The Nation’s Health Powerhouse

These statistics underscore the pivotal role of Nashville in the US health eco-sector:

• Economic Impact: The health industry contributes nearly $68 billion annually to the local economy, reflecting its significance as a primary economic driver.
• Employment: Healthcare is the region’s largest employer, supporting more than 332,000 jobs and 167,916 direct positions annually.
• Global Reach: Nashville-based health companies operate facilities across all 50 states and 20 countries, managing more than 500,000 healthcare beds worldwide, an estimated 34 percent of investor-owned hospitals in the US.
• Investment Magnet: In the past decade, more than $1.6 billion in venture capital has been invested in Nashville health-sector enterprises, fueling continuous innovation and growth.

The Genesis of Nashville Health Provider System Leadership

The city’s ascent as a national health-sector hub is rooted in its commitment to medical innovation and role-model leadership:

Founding of HCA Healthcare: In 1968, Dr. Thomas F. Frist Sr. and his son Dr. Thomas F. Frist Jr., both physicians and visionaries, together with businessman Jack C. Massey, co-founded the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) in Nashville. This pioneering venture introduced a new model of hospital management, leading to the establishment of the world’s largest private operator of health facilities. Their philosophy has also fueled countless other enterprises in Nashville that support the national health system.

Early Medical Institutions: The city’s commitment to healthcare dates back to the early 20th century. In 1916, Dr. John Henry Hale and his wife, Millie E. Hale, established the Millie E. Hale Hospital, providing essential medical services to the Black-American community during segregation. The hospital closed in 1938 when Dr. John Henry Hale was appointed the chief of surgery at Meharry Medical College.

Educational Foundations: Institutions like Meharry Medical College have been instrumental in training Black American physicians and dentists since the 19th Century. While Nashville is its home, it contributes to the well-being of all Americans. It is built on the foundation of training exceptional physician leaders, advocating for continued health access, and tirelessly addressing health disparities.

National Health-Sector Leaders: The Frist family has impacted national health beyond creating HCA and spin-off entrepreneurial enterprises.  Frist Sr., son Willian (Bill) Frist, MD, trained as a cardiothoracic transplant surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine and later founded the Vanderbilt Transplant Center. From Nashville, he went on to champion the Medicare Modernization Act as a Senate Majority Leader.   

Today, Former Senator Frist is a Special Partner with Cressey & Company and Chairman of the firm’s Distinguished Executives Council, where he continues to influence Nashville’s reputation as a health innovation hub.

Nashville’s concentration of national health leaders includes Meharry Medical College President James E. K. Hildreth, MD, a global infectious disease expert. Dr. Hildreth is renowned for his HIV/AIDS research and leadership in public health. He was the first African American to become a full-tenured professor in basic research at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Jeffrey R. Balser, MD, PhD, is among the significant Nashville leaders whose vision and voice steer US health. As the President and CEO of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and the Dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, VUMC has expanded its role as one of the nation’s top academic medical centers, excelling in clinical care, research, and education. Dr. Balser is recognized for his transformational influence on digital transformation and community health initiatives.

ViVE 2025: Innovation and Collaboration

ViVE comes to Nashville at a critical time in public health and health innovation.  The new Administration is going through a significant DOGE-driven cost-cutting initiative.  Billions are being slashed from the nation’s National Institutes of Health research budget – sometimes without fully considering what is at stake for the nation’s health and well-being.

There are sweeping suggestions that indirect institutional support costs are unneeded or that funds are being used inappropriately. Can this be determined as quickly as one month into the new White House administration? Research requires laboratories, equipment, and staff. Claiming that these institutions are fat cats fleecing the system and disregarding taxpayer dollars likely sends the wrong message that knowledge and innovation – the fabric of US global competitiveness – are overrated. Will this challenge to US health innovation be part of the ViVE conversational vibe?

Attending ViVE – Look for These Discussions

• Will science and medical advancements grind to a painful halt, and if research programs are cut, what is lost that translates into better access and care? 
• Can the US lose its global leadership in biomedicine?
• When high-paying science jobs are cut, economic strength is compromised in places like Nashville, which is among the region’s largest health employers; what trickle-down impact does it have on jobs?

In the shadow of research budget cuts, a system that spends $4 trillion on health and is sorely needed to address information fragmentation, ViVE and Nashville are at the right time and place. Building upon the success of previous years, ViVE 2025 is poised to be a transformative event that fosters collaboration and conversation among health leaders, investors, and digital health pioneers when needed most.

The post Nashville: Health Innovation Hits the Right Notes at ViVE 2025 appeared first on Medika Life.

Surprised? You’re not alone! But the numbers are a tune you won’t forget.  The music industry is a significant contributor to the Nashville economy.  The Country Music Association reports that the music industry generates $10 billion in economic impact annually for the city.  That includes revenue from live music events, music tourism and recording studios.

But even if you add in the sales from hotel reservations and souvenirs, health wins hands down over music when it comes to economic impact. According to the Nashville Health Care Council, the city’s health industry contributes more than $67 billion annually to the region’s economy and employs 325,000 people. This includes health providers, medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and healthcare IT firms. The health industry is also responsible for nearly 40% of all jobs in the Nashville region.

Nashville is a Given When it Comes to Hosting ViVE

Unsurprisingly, ViVE Events chose Nashville for its second gathering – a city quietly making its mark on the nation’s health system. Nashville is the perfect place for ViVE Events. It attracts change agents and digital health innovators known for their collaborative nature and seeking a friendly setting to exchange ideas and learn from each other.

“This is only the second year for ViVE and the conference is emerging as a big draw. Last year’s event attracted 5,000 people, and this year, ViVE is expected to draw around 7,500,” says Keith Fraidenburg, CHIME executive vice president and chief operating and innovation officer. CHIME is the main driver behind the ViVE gathering, centering around digital health and health information.

“Music City” is home to some of the most prestigious healthcare organizations in the United States, including HCA Healthcare, Meharry Medical College, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Community Health Systems. These institutions provide world-class medical care to patients from across the country and world and, much like Cambridge, MA, with its proximity to academic medical centers, universities and service supports, serve as engines of innovation for the health innovation sector.

In addition to leading healthcare providers, Nashville is home to a vibrant ecosystem of start-ups and entrepreneurs focused on health innovation. Many companies are spin-offs of HCA Healthcare, which long encouraged staff to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.  Now, the community is supported by local incubators and accelerators like the Nashville Health Care Council, Lifepoint Health, and Frist Cressey Ventures, which all provide resources, connections, and mentorship to help start-ups grow and thrive.

The iconic Tommy Frist Sr., who co-founded HCA Healthcare, and was a longstanding investor in entrepreneurial ventures, helped fuel Nashville’s growth as a national health hub.  “Nashville’s healthcare industry is a critical economic driver for the region, employing tens of thousands of people and generating billions of dollars in economic activity,” said Frist Sr, who died in 1998 and created the foundation for Nashville to be a national health system force: “As a lifelong Nashvillian and founder of one of the region’s leading healthcare companies, I am proud of Nashville’s role in advancing healthcare innovation and improving patient care.”

The concentration of healthcare providers and innovators in Nashville has attracted significant investment, with venture capital firms, legal powerhouse firms such as Waller and private equity groups recognizing the region’s potential for growth and innovation. This investment has super-charged the development of innovative technologies, therapies, and patient care approaches, transforming the healthcare industry.

Nashville’s position as a center for health innovation and provider services is critical to the future of healthcare in the United States. With a collaborative ecosystem of healthcare providers, academic institutions, start-ups, and investors, Nashville is well-positioned to drive new advancements in patient care and access. Its unique combination of expertise, resources, and quality of life makes it an ideal destination for healthcare professionals and entrepreneurs looking to impact the healthcare industry positively.

Start-Up Health Kicks Off at ViVE 2023

Some 100 company leaders were on-hand for the Start Up Health Transformers Unite! 2023 Health Transformer Workshop hosted by Steven Krein, co-founder and managing partner, and Jamey Edwards, chief platform officer of Start-Up Health.  Start-Up Health is a unique model for entrepreneurs seeking the support of an accelerator. 

A community with the rigor of an academy, Start Up Health offers health IT, health tech and wellness entrepreneurs a structure and curriculum to help them navigate the unique challenges – addressing everything from mindset to positioning to raising money to navigate the fragmented health ecosystem.  Now Start Up Health is working to ensure companies accepted into its supportive hive succeed in their missions to build sustainable growth businesses. 

According to Founder Unity Stoakes, “In a world full of limited-scope, short-form, quick-hit business advice, we’re building Health Transformer University with long-term transformation in mind. That means being stage agnostic, unbound by time, and globally connected.”

The ViVE 2023 gathering conversation centered around a clear development model by translating Maslow’s hierarchy of success into four steps for “Achieving Health Moonshots.”

1. Mission & Mindset
2. Rhythm & Progress
3. Relationships & Brand
4. Capital & Impact

The portfolio companies – all impressive – are hand-picked for receiving the time and attention of a leadership team that has graduated successfully from the Start-Up Health incubator community. The approach is working well for those accepted into its program.  Valera Health, offering mental health services, has also received support from Cigna. Another, Avanlee Care, has teamed up with Walmart to apply its technology to support millions of unpaid caregivers. Athelo Health, led by Jessica Thurmond, is pioneering long needed efforts in women’s health. Taking on long-neglected conversations around diagnosis, information access, treatment approaches, the company has launched a biometric-anchored virtual coach for women with breast and gynecologic cancers.

Start Up Health catalyzes long-awaited changes in the global health system.  Here are two profiles among the scores of companies participating in their incubator/accelerator community:

Vigilant Software is working to eliminate one billion common medication errors by digitizing hospital-based drug delivery. In a system still dominated by hand-written medical orders or patient charts – where faxes are still deployed to transmit vital medical information – there are bound to be mistakes – sometimes deadly.  Caring for patients on the floors is one thing.  But, when critical care is needed, analog data shouldn’t be considered a go-to system. Health information technology can be deployed to address urgent care speed.

This Start-Up Health-supported company seeks to help critical care nurses by eliminating workflow steps that often involve translating – or misinterpreting – handwritten instructions. Its automation platform –a proprietary barcode scanner and label printer – eliminates manual calculations so that IV infusions and injections are safer and, by reducing workflow, returns time to patient care.

Vigilant demonstrated that its digital health system could save some 4,000 hours of critical care nursing time annually in a typical American hospital. As hospitals shoulder the burden of nurse staffing shortages and nurse burnout, reducing drug-interaction risks, and automating tasks, have several clear benefits – from saving lives to strengthening staff retention.

equalityMD is changing how the LGBTQ+ community perceives and receives health services. The Start Up Health-guided company has evolved through the years.  First launched in January 2015 as an LGBTQ+ multimedia and marketing company called Q Media, it shifted into an LGBTQ+ consumer behavioral data analytics company. But the pandemic – the pressing need for health services within the LGBTQ+ community – pushed it into its current form as a life-sustaining and saving medical matchmaker. Its founder and CEO, Justin Ayars, JD, a former trial lawyer, recognized a long-standing health equity need and transformed the company into the first virtual LGBTQ+ inclusive healthcare platform.

Using a proprietary machine-learning matching algorithm, equalityMD connects the LGBTQ+ community with culturally competent primary care and mental health providers nationwide. The system seeks to create a safe space on what is likely the virtual first platform where this community can be their authentic selves and receive the care required. Providers complete LGBTQ+ cultural competency training through a third-party ACCME provider and are then invited to onto platform, enabling them to be matched with people seeking care. As an added benefit, providers can receive Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits by participating in these training programs.

equalityMD is certified both as a Benefit Corporation (B-Corp) and LGBT Business Enterprise (LGBTBE) – a National LGBT Chamber of Commerce supplier diversity status, is now strengthening ties with Blue Cross Blue Shield, CVS/Aetna, and Cedars-Sinai so that its business model is enduring, scalable and demonstrates outcomes.

Model for Health Innovation Collaboration in a Welcoming City

The CHIME ViVE 2023 model draws in collaborative partners such as Start Up Health. The InteropNow! and Cybersecurity Pavilions, as well as welcoming others such as UC Davis and Galen Growth to use the gathering to share breaking insights (watch for the following ViVE 2023 report), centered around a city of hospitality, fun and health innovation is the perfect medicine for health transformers looking to learn and apply.   

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