Measures the Change-Response Gap: how fast industries are changing versus how fast companies are responding.
September 2026: Healthcare & MedTech scores 72 (Orange Zone), with a Change Score of 82 and a Response Score of 39. Health tech and payer companies put AI numbers on their earnings calls this month: Doximity, Hims & Hers, and CVS Health all reported usage or efficiency figures. Hospital operators still did not, and change and response rose together, so the score held.
About 34% of US adults have used an AI chatbot for a health reason, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 3,488 adults published August 25. One in four use chatbots to figure out what is causing their symptoms, and 47% call the answers extremely or very helpful. Hims & Hers, the online health company, said on August 10 that it has about 3 million subscribers, up 300,000 in the quarter.
Becker's Hospital Review, the industry trade publication, listed 20 health systems with a chief AI officer or equivalent on August 5, including Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic. National Nurses United, a union of more than 225,000 registered nurses, protested in eight cities on August 27. They want hospitals to cut ties with Palantir, the data company. Northwell Health, the health system, tied ambient AI to annual performance targets and documented a nearly 3-minute cut in charting time per clinician, according to Becker's. AI leadership is standard at big systems now, and labor friction over AI vendors has started.
Hinge Health, the digital health company, agreed on August 4 to buy Cylinder Health for $105 million in cash to move into digestive care. The Fierce Healthcare fundraising tracker logged eight August venture rounds worth roughly $295 million, led by Happy Health's $75 million Series A and Hopscotch's $53 million Series D. Business Insider reported on August 21 that Devoted Health, the health startup, is raising at a valuation that could reach $25 billion. The company has not confirmed it. Money kept moving in steady mid-size checks rather than the billion-dollar deals of July.
The FDA opened a formal request on August 18 for public input on how to regulate medical devices built on generative AI and AI agents. Comments are due October 19. Colorado's Department of Law filed proposed rules on August 11 to carry out its automated decision law and its new chatbot safety law. Both take effect January 1, 2027, and the chatbot law bars presenting AI output as equal to licensed medical or mental health care. In the UK, the medicines regulator MHRA has decided not to treat AI scribes as medical devices, according to Healthwatch England.
Acceptance and pushback rose together. Among people who use chatbots for health, 29% told Pew Research Center they are extremely or very comfortable sharing personal health data with one. Healthwatch England, the NHS patient watchdog, warned on August 31 that AI scribes in NHS visits are recording wrong drug names and diagnoses. Patients, not doctors, caught the errors. Mayo Clinic CEO Gianrico Farrugia told Axios on August 16 that he requires every C-suite member to build at least one AI agent. Patients will use AI, but they want it right and they want a say.
Epic, the electronic health record company, used its August user meeting to preview an Agent Factory with 120 ready-made AI features that early adopters are now testing. Epic says more than 85% of its customers already use its AI tools. Abridge, the AI notetaking company, said on August 17 that its clinical decision support has reached more than 300 health systems since its April launch. A study in PLOS Digital Health found that of 1,357 AI devices cleared by the FDA, only 0.2% were tested on patient outcomes, AuntMinnie reported on August 19. The tools are spreading faster than the evidence behind them.
The talk got specific, at least outside the hospitals. Doximity, the physician network, said on August 6 that use of its AI scribe grew 10 times year over year in July. Hims & Hers said on August 10 that AI care tools launched in early July tripled patient messaging and cut non-clinical support tasks by 50%. CVS Health said on August 5 that AI cut claims processing time by more than 20% and freed 1 million pharmacist hours for clinical work. HCA Healthcare, the hospital operator, named no AI initiative in its July 24 results.
The August edition counted 12 of the top 20 health systems with posted AI leadership roles and only 4 filled. Becker's Hospital Review, the industry trade publication, now lists 20 health systems with a sitting chief AI officer or equivalent, including Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente. Mayo Clinic CEO Gianrico Farrugia told Axios that C-suite members must each build an AI agent and use several AI models every week. Northwell Health plans a clinical informatics residency as its next step after ambient AI, according to Becker's. AI leaders are in place; the open question is whether they sit in clinical operations.
Capital moved inside health tech companies, not hospitals. Doximity told investors on August 6 that its margins will compress in the near term because of spending on AI computing. Hims & Hers CFO Yemi Okupe said AI investments pay back in 12 to 18 months and that the savings go into lower prices. Hinge Health paid $105 million in cash for Cylinder Health, and the Fierce Healthcare tracker logged about $295 million in August venture rounds. No new survey of hospital AI budgets appeared this month. Vendors are spending on AI; hospital budgets are not documented as shifting.
Epic, the electronic health record company, said at its August user meeting that Ergo Visit, its AI visit tool, is live at Ochsner Health. Its Ask Emmie assistant is live at Sutter Health and two other systems, and real-time prior authorization runs at four. Doximity said on August 6 that 165 health systems are live as AI clients. First Databank, working with Tebra, launched what it describes as the first commercial AI prescribing agent. No August progress figure appeared for England's AI triage tool. The same lead vendors and lead systems keep shipping, and Epic's biggest items are still a year out.
The clock got shorter for some. Abridge, the AI notetaking company, launched clinical decision support in April and reached more than 300 health systems by August 17, about four months. UPMC, the health system, says more than 60% of its Abridge users picked up the tool on their own with no extra training. Hims & Hers deployed AI care tools in early July and reported results on August 10, about five weeks later. Epic's biggest items still sit a year out, with its agent platform due in 2027.
The score of 72 reflects a 43-point gap between the Change Score and Response Score.