The Future of Healthcare Isn't Just Smart, It's Human
A practitioner perspective by Sachin K. Gupta, Founder and CEO, IKS Health.
The argument
Heavy tech investment and consolidation have not improved patient experience because they treat symptoms, not care-process design. Healthcare needs a unified care-enablement approach spanning the patient journey that supports clinicians rather than adding fragmented point solutions.
Why we picked it
The HTC editorial desk curates practitioner perspectives that pass a simple test: would a health system executive, product leader, or investor act differently after reading it? This piece by Sachin K. Gupta earns its place - it comes from the operating trenches of health it & interoperability, not the conference stage, and it takes a position specific enough to disagree with.
The bigger picture
Virtual care's policy clock frames everything: Medicare telehealth flexibilities run through December 31, 2027, hospital-at-home through 2030, and utilization jumped 10.1% in Q1 2026 alone (our coverage). Health systems making the moves discussed here are building against that runway - and lobbying to make it permanent.
Read it alongside our own reporting in Health IT & Interoperability, where the data behind this debate is covered daily on the HTC Wire.