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April 20, 2026: What happens when you layer AI onto broken processes without fixing them first? Angel Mena, MD, CMO of Symplr, joins Bill Russell, Drex DeFord, and Sarah Richardson on Newsday to answer that question with the kind of clinical candor only a practicing physician can bring. From ambient documentation to quality metrics to the credentialing chaos hiding inside every health system, this conversation exposes the gap between AI's promise and what healthcare leaders must do to close it before the opportunity slips away. Key Points: 00:37 Clinicians and Tech Today 07:44 Beyond the AI Hype 14:49 Admin Burden Credentialing 18:44 Governance Change and Wrap Keep up to date on the latest in health IT: https://thisweekhealth.com/news/ X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

April 16, 2026: Something big is changing at This Week Health, and it starts with this episode. Bill Russell sits down with Sarah Richardson to announce that Flourish, the beloved show Sarah has helmed since joining TWH, is joining the 229 Podcast. But this isn't a step back; it's a consolidation of purpose. Bill and Sarah unpack why simplifying to a single channel better serves the healthcare IT community, what listeners can expect going forward, and why the conversations that happened on Flourish aren't going away, just coming home. Keep up to date on the latest in health IT: https://thisweekhealth.com/news/ Key Points: 02:30 Flourish Joins 22908:06 Signal Reports And AI16:52 City Tour Plans21:55 Fundraising Rides Events X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

April 13, 2026: Jacob Hansen, Chief Product and Technology Officer at AvaSure, joins Bill, Drex, and Sarah on Newsday for a conversation about the data governance battles quietly reshaping AI. From who owns AI model improvements derived from a health system's environment to whether EHRs should have control over how that data is used, Jacob pulls no punches. The conversation also tackles the evolving CIO title, the future of computer science careers in an AI-driven world, and why nursing may be one of the most AI-resilient roles in healthcare. Key Points: 01:07 CIO to CTDO Shift06:52 Data Ownership and Governance13:24 AI Transparency and Governance21:00 Careers and AI Future Keep up to date on the latest in health IT: https://thisweekhealth.com/news/ X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

April 1, 2026: Healthcare fraud is a $300 billion problem, and the old rules-based approach isn't stopping it. In this Solution Showcase from the HIMSS floor, Tim McNamee, Enterprise Account Manager, and Mark Larochelle, Strategic Public Sector Account Executive, of Cloudera explore how agentic AI is transforming fraud detection, clinical decision support, and data governance in healthcare. From enabling human-in-the-loop workflows to bringing AI directly to protected data inside your own environment, Cloudera is redefining what private AI looks like at scale. Key Points: 01:12 Cloudera Origins And AI Shift03:30 Fraud Detection With Agentic AI07:17 Explainability, Private AI, And Governance11:26 Surprises, Cost Benefits, and Wrap Up X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

March 30, 2026: Bill Russell and Drex DeFord dig into three of the biggest stories shaping healthcare IT right now. From the seismic Sutter Health and Allina Health merger, the Stryker cyberattack carried out by an Iranian-linked group Handala, and the sobering reality that threat actors like Tycoon 2FA are back online within 15 days of being taken down, this episode covers the frontlines of healthcare IT. Key Points: 00:23 Sutter Allina Merger Realities07:29 Advice for Staff During M&A11:17 Stryker Hack and Cyber Resilience19:21 AI and Healthcare Jobs29:38 Patient Experience Reimagined X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

March 27, 2026: Most healthcare organizations see legacy systems as technical debt—costly to maintain, risky to secure, and difficult to access. But what if that same data could become the foundation for your AI strategy? From the HIMSS floor, Bill Russell sits down with Jason Rose (CEO) and Jonathan Cook (CTO) of Clearsense to explore how health systems can rapidly retire legacy applications while transforming decades of archived data into actionable intelligence. With hundreds—even thousands—of systems sitting idle across clinical, financial, and operational domains, Clearsense is rethinking archiving as more than storage. By applying AI across ingestion, data normalization, and intelligent querying, they’re enabling organizations to reduce costs, lower cyber risk, and unlock entirely new insights from historical data. From summarizing hundreds of documents in seconds to embedding archive intelligence directly into clinical workflows, this conversation highlights how legacy data is evolving from a burden into a strategic AI asset—and why the organizations that act now may gain a lasting advantage. Key Points Accelerating Legacy Data Ingestion with AIMaking Unstructured Data ActionableBuilding a Healthcare “Time Machine”

March 25, 2026: What happens when a health system is juggling over 100 active IT projects with a workforce that can never be 100% allocated to any single one? Joe Longo, SVP and CDIO at Parkland Health, and Eric Utzinger, Co-Founder and Chief Client Officer at Revuud, join Bill Russell to expose the hidden dysfunction inside traditional healthcare IT staffing — and what a transparent, direct-access platform model is doing to fix it. If your hiring managers are still waiting weeks for a resume that three other firms already sent you, this one is worth your time. Key Points: 01:14 Traditional Staffing Pain Points07:26 What’s Broken for Agencies13:00 How Revuud Works19:33 Transparent Pricing and Hiring X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

March 23, 2026: Bill Russell, Drex DeFord, and Sarah Richardson are back with a packed Newsday covering three big conversations: the AI security crisis no one is talking loudly enough about, what HIMSS 2026 actually delivered for healthcare leaders, and the real question facing every CIO and CMIO right now: Is your time worth attending two major conferences each spring?  Key Points: 01:03 AI Chatbot Security04:25 MIT AI Strategy Class06:55 HIMSS Takeaways and Trends10:40 Conference Value and Wrap Up X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

March 20, 2026: Healthcare leaders have been talking about the “smart hospital room” for years. Now it is starting to become real. In this live conversation from the floor of HIMSS 2026, Bill Russell speaks with Adam McMullin, CEO of AvaSure, about how virtual care platforms are evolving beyond patient monitoring into a foundation for the hospital room of the future. With deployments across more than 1,200 hospitals, AvaSure built its footprint through virtual safety monitoring, helping health systems reduce fall risks while dramatically lowering costs. Now that same infrastructure is expanding into physician access, computer vision, and AI driven patient monitoring that could detect deterioration hours before a patient crashes. Adam shares how health systems are rethinking the hospital room as a connected care platform. Virtual nursing, family engagement, Epic integrations, and emerging capabilities like contactless vital monitoring are all becoming part of the same environment. The result is not simply new technology. It is a shift toward safer rooms, better staffing models, and new ways to extend care from the hospital into the home. For health system leaders navigating workforce shortages and rising costs, the question is no longer whether virtual care will scale. The real question is how quickly the hospital room itself will transform. Key Points: The Evolution of Virtual Safety MonitoringBuilding the Smart Hospital RoomComputer Vision and Early Patient Intervention

March 19, 2026: What does it take to open an 850-bed, 2-million-square-foot hospital? Thomas Bentley, Chief Information and Digital Transformation Officer at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, joins Bill Russell to pull back the curtain on one of healthcare's most complex technology challenges. From over 100 delivery robots to virtual nursing cameras and a fully integrated RFID-enabled nurse call system, Bentley breaks down what went right and what kept him up at night. A candid conversation every health system CIO needs to hear. Key Points: 01:31 Opening the New Tower06:31 Future Proofing and Network10:38 Safety Systems and Closing Advice X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

March 18, 2026: Most health systems treat EHR migrations as a checkbox, finish the project, move on. James Hammer, COO of Harmony Healthcare IT, says that mindset is costing organizations their most valuable future asset. With 19 years of experience and 715+ unique source applications migrated or archived, James reveals why legacy data is no longer just a compliance burden; it's an emerging source of AI fuel. From ambulatory practices to the nation's largest IDNs, Harmony is helping healthcare leaders rethink data not as a sunk cost, but as a strategic foundation for research, analytics, and AI. Don't let your past data become a missed opportunity. Golf Tournament Registration:  https://carahevents.carahsoft.com/Event/Details/686801-ThisWeekHealth Key Points: 02:18 Migration vs Archiving Strategy05:49 Decommissioning Without Friction08:43 Data as an Asset  X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

March 17, 2026: Blake Sallé, Chief Revenue Officer at Proofpoint, joins us live from the HIMSS conference floor to break down why agentic AI may be healthcare's next great security vulnerability. With 91% of breaches still entering through email and AI systems proving just as susceptible to manipulation as humans, Blake makes the case for why healthcare organizations need to rethink their entire security architecture, starting well before threats reach the inbox.  Stay up to date on the latest in health IT with our insights email: https://thisweekhealth.com/subscribe/ Key Points: 00:20 Proofpoint Beyond Email02:35 Why AI Is Gullible03:40 Email Threats Kill Left X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

March 16: What are healthcare leaders really talking about at HIMSS? Bill Russell sits down with Sarah Richardson and Drex DeFord to share insights from the executive and cybersecurity forums—and the hallway conversations in between. AI dominates the discussion, but not just in clinical care. The hosts highlight the overlooked opportunities in operational workflows, patient outreach, and administrative efficiency. They also confront uncomfortable realities around workforce displacement, escalating infrastructure costs, and whether large technology vendors can maintain their value as AI lowers the barrier to building solutions internally. For CIOs, the challenge is clear: manage today’s operations while preparing for an AI-driven future that’s evolving faster than any roadmap. Key Points AI Arms Race in CybersecurityWhere AI Delivers the Fastest ROIWorkforce Disruption and Leadership ResponsibilityVendor Pricing Pressure and Infrastructure CostsThe Future of Build vs Buy in Healthcare IT

March 12, 2026: Joseph Evans, CMIO for Sentara Healthcare, joins Bill Russell fresh off the VIVE event to unpack what's really happening on the front lines of healthcare AI adoption. From Epic's expanding generative AI catalog to the flood of point solutions promising to solve everything from length of stay to clinical summarization, Joseph shares how Sentara is staying disciplined, evaluating problems first. He also raises a provocative concern that's keeping him up at night: it's not AI hallucinations we should fear most, it's what the models are quietly leaving out. Golf Tournament Registration:  https://carahevents.carahsoft.com/Event/Details/686801-ThisWeekHealth Key Points: 01:32 Vive Event Takeaways06:33 Trust and Governance10:53 Evaluating New AI Vendors15:02 Patient AI and Access21:42 Personal AI Wins and Wrap X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

March 11, 2026: What if you could reclaim thousands of hours of IT staff time, without cutting corners on quality? Chris Paravate, CDIO at Northeast Georgia Health System, joins Phillip Furukawa, CRO at SureTest, to reveal how they achieved a 98% reduction in manual testing time across their Epic environment. From 161 regression incidents down to 45, the numbers tell a compelling story. Discover how testing automation is reshaping Epic upgrade cycles, freeing up nearly 10 FTEs worth of capacity, and unlocking a faster path to quarterly updates and meaningful clinical innovation. Golf Tournament Registration:  https://carahevents.carahsoft.com/Event/Details/686801-ThisWeekHealth Key Points: 03:08 Epic Upgrades and Testing Pain04:47 Why Automation Matters07:20 SureTest Implementation Playbook12:00 Results Time and FTE Savings17:48 CIO Advice and Wrap Up X: This Week Health LinkedIn: This Week Health Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer