One of our core values at Altera Digital Health is to “Communicate and Share Knowledge.” And in healthcare, it is imperative to exchange lessons learned and new ideas to push the industry forward to the benefit of patients, providers and care organizations.

In that spirit, throughout 2025, Altera subject matter experts shared their learnings across an array of health IT publications. From the evolving cybersecurity landscape to data-sharing advancements, here are some media highlights worth revisiting:

Hospital Management covered the release of Sunrise 25.1, which includes nearly 700 enhancements designed to improve financial and ambulatory workflows, reduce cognitive load and provide critical information at the point of care. The article underscores how balancing best-practice workflows with flexibility can help hospitals support revenue integrity and clinical productivity.

Dr. Laura Kohlhagen, Chief Medical Officer for Sunrise, echoed the need for modernized electronic health record (EHR) workflows in a byline published in KevinMD. In the article, she discusses how advancements like intelligent automation and enhanced interoperability tools can improve clinical usability and patient engagement.

Rural and community hospitals, in particular, need health IT systems that save time and improve documentation; they often share many of the same responsibilities as large health systems but have fewer staff to address them.

Dr. Mark Pratt, Chief Medical Officer for Altera, and Dr. Mark Howerter, Chief Medical Officer for Paragon client Columbus Community Hospital, spoke to this with Healthcare Innovation. The two discussed how artificial intelligence (AI) can help offload mundane processes so short-staffed teams can dedicate more attention to patients and other high-value tasks. Dr. Howerter also notes how AI-driven solutions, such as ambient listening, can help in recruitment efforts as community hospitals often tap into the same talent pools as large hospitals.

Sunrise, Paragon and TouchWorks EHR all now offer ambient listening and documentation assistance capabilities. In HIStalk, Dr. Jeanne Armstrong, Chief Medical Officer for TouchWorks EHR, details the technical capabilities organizations must evaluate when implementing these tools to ensure success with co-author Dr. Jay Anders, Chief Medical Officer for Altera partner Medicomp. The two underscore the need for documentation assistance that generates structured, codified data to address administrative burdens—without introducing a new layer of complexity.

Similarly, Kevin Ritter, Executive Vice President of CareInMotion, wrote about the need to prioritize data quality over quantity in Health Data Management. His recommendations—starting with a common data model, applying strong data governance, and implementing data quality reporting and scoring—are the backbone of the CareInTelligence data platform made generally available this year.

In Healthcare Business Today, Tim O’Brien, Vice President of Cloud Growth, reminded us of the risks healthcare organizations must be mindful of as they vet and implement new AI solutions. He notes that as with other systems, AI should have guardrails like a zero-trust framework and minimum necessary privileges and access to balance protection and innovation.

In addition to security, healthcare organizations must also prioritize responsible, ethical use of AI, as outlined by Ben Scharfe, Executive Vice President of AI, in Managed Healthcare Executive, which selected Ben for its 2025 list of Emerging Leaders in Healthcare. Stratifying AI use cases by risk level can help organizations identify a good starting point to support successful adoption across their AI journeys, as he shared in Healthcare IT Today.

Finally, Leigh Burchell, Vice President of Policy and Government Affairs, kept us apprised of major tech and health policy activity, both in DC and state capitals, throughout the year. From discussing interoperability incentives with Fierce Healthcare to AI oversight with Healthcare IT News, her commentary illustrated the complex, ever-evolving nature of healthcare and health IT—and helped earn her a spot on Becker’s Hospital Review’s top women in health IT to know list.

Looking for more best practices and industry insights from healthcare subject matter experts? Visit the newsroom page on our website to browse through media coverage throughout the year featuring Altera leaders.