Value-Based Care and Rural Health – 2026 Health IT Predictions

As we wrap up another year and get ready for 2026 to begin, it is once again time for everyone’s favorite annual tradition of Health IT Predictions! We reached out to our incredible Healthcare IT Today Community to get their insights on what will happen in the coming year, and boy, did they deliver. We, in fact, got so many responses to our prompt this year that we have had to narrow them down to just the best and most interesting. Check out the community’s predictions down below and be sure to follow along as we share more 2026 Health IT Predictions!

Check out our community’s Value-Based Care and Rural Health predictions:

Jason Griffin, MBA, CISM, Managing Director of Digital Health/IT Strategy & Cybersecurity at Nordic Global
Rural healthcare will continue to rise to the top of health equity conversations, but it will be less about flashy new tools and more about survival-level strategy. Many of these organizations are staring down a financial cliff while interoperability mandates tighten, and new rural transformation funding models roll out. They’re already operating on razor-thin or negative margins, so it’s no surprise that workforce and cost management sit at the top of their priority lists, with technology and automation ranking much lower.

The risk is that digital transformation gets treated as a ‘nice-to-have IT project’ instead of one of the few levers they actually have to stabilize margins, protect their workforce, and reach more patients.

The rural organizations that pull ahead will reframe digital and data investments as essential workforce and equity strategies, not tech spend. In practice, this means using automation to take low-value work off of clinicians’ plates, standing up telehealth and remote monitoring to extend scarce specialists across a wider geography, and aligning IT roadmaps with clinical and business strategies. It also means recognizing that the communities with the deepest health equity gaps are often the ones most affected by policy shifts, so success can’t just be ‘we turned on the technology.’

In 2026, the leaders to watch will be the ones who build partnerships across states, vendors, and community organizations to share talent, implement the right infrastructure, and bring patients into the digital workflow.

Kathryn Boger, Ph.D, ABPP, Co-Founder and Chief Clinical Officer at InStride Health
In 2026, Measurement-based care (MBC) will finally get its moment in behavioral healthcare. It won’t arrive with a splashy headline, but through a quiet, steady shift as patients and families come to expect it as the norm. Payers will take a sharper interest in understanding outcomes, and more clinicians will use real-time data to guide decision-making.

Libby Sagara, Managing Director at BluePath Health
For years, California’s Medi-Cal managed care plans and FQHCs have led the way in using electronic consult (e-consult) to address rural challenges in access to care by meeting patients where they are, keeping them with their local primary care providers, and connecting with remote specialists. In 2026, we will see many states incorporate this successful model in their approaches to Rural Health Transformation.

Dr. Javeed Siddiqui, Chief Medical Officer at TeleMed2U
The recently announced Rural Health Transformation Program underscores a shared understanding that the 60 million-plus Americans who live in rural America deserve the same level of access, efficiency, and coordinated specialty care as any other population. In the year ahead, we should expect that these communities will make major strides in elevating access to care, which will be made possible through virtual visits. This starts with addressing traditional internet and reimbursement barriers, which will empower even more patients to see specialists without having to travel long distances.

Matt Lambert, Chief Medical Officer at Reveleer
Uncertainty will continue to shape healthcare in 2026, from ACA instability to Medicare Advantage retraction, but we’ll also see meaningful shifts happening underneath the surface. Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) organizations will quietly become the foundation for future MA growth and accelerated Value-Based Care adoption later in the decade as they bring stronger care-management capabilities into risk.

Patient-facing AI will accelerate the rise of ‘AI triage clinics,’ offering faster guidance for complex or rural cases and resetting patient expectations for access, momentum that is further driven by White House-sponsored initiatives aimed at creating more patient-centric healthcare ecosystems. And despite mixed payer enthusiasm, federal momentum will revive remote patient monitoring and other patient-facing technologies. 2026 will be a pivotal bridge year, laying the groundwork for the next wave of value-based transformation.

Denise Murray, Division Vice President, Client Services at TaskUs
In 2026, value-based healthcare will move from aspirational to inevitable. When automation cuts administrative costs by roughly 30 percent while improving outcomes, paying for volume instead of results will look increasingly foolish. Insurers will shift more payments toward proven performance as hybrid-care models (where technology handles the grunt work so people can focus on what matters become standard practice. Most major systems will deploy automated engagement tools and patients will notice the difference in faster service and better personalization. They’ll vote with their feet, choosing providers that can show better results.

AJ Patel, CEO at TeleMed2U
Telemedicine provides the technological infrastructure to deliver care that is more integrated, efficient, cost-effective, and outcome-oriented, which are the fundamental goals of value-based care. That said, in order to be successful in the model, health plans must deploy the right mix of high touch and high tech. This starts with harnessing the measurable value, derived from the human interaction between a patient and provider/care team (especially when it’s a complex care management scenario), the shared trust established between the two, and then layering in technology. It is in these scenarios, when the power of humans and technology are seamlessly brought together, that the clinical and financial impacts are truly magnified.

Jason Bellet, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at Eko Health
In 2026, rural health systems are likely to lean more heavily on AI-enabled detection tools as workforce shortages and limited specialist access continue to strain frontline care. Devices like AI-supported stethoscopes and digital exam instruments will play a growing role in identifying early signs of cardiopulmonary issues during routine encounters.

This will be particularly true in communities where advanced testing or specialty consults aren’t readily available. As integration into everyday clinical workflows improves, AI-enabled tools will help rural clinicians catch concerning patterns earlier and make more informed decisions about when patients need follow-up or escalation. Supporting earlier detection without overburdening already stretched health systems will result in a healthier population.

David Ever, Senior Director of Solutions Marketing at Laserfiche
In 2026, rural healthcare organizations will face both pressure and opportunity to modernize as the $50 billion Rural Health Fund takes effect. With limited budgets and IT resources, these providers will increasingly adopt enterprise content management (ECM) solutions to close the long-standing technology gap with larger health systems.

By embracing ECM, these providers can automate records management, strengthen compliance, and enable secure data sharing across care networks, which are critical steps toward bridging the technology gap that has long separated rural health systems from their larger counterparts.

Over the next year, expect to see a surge in ECM adoption across rural healthcare as organizations prepare to capitalize on federal funding. The result will be leaner, more digitally connected operations that improve patient information management, accelerate remote care delivery, and ensure financial stability through better billing transparency and regulatory compliance.

Shaji Nair, Founder and CEO at Friska AI
Lifestyle data, including nutrition, activity, sleep, and glucose trends, will be recognized as clinically meaningful and increasingly used to shape quality measures, early interventions, and reimbursement models. We expect payers to incorporate continuous lifestyle signals into quality and payment frameworks because of their potential to close care gaps far more quickly than episodic clinic visits.

As a result, validated data will become the gold standard, with health systems prioritizing vendors that deliver clean, clinically reliable lifestyle information rather than unverified consumer feeds. Ultimately, pharma and life sciences organizations will also embrace metabolic signals and begin using lifestyle and CGM-based endpoints in trials and real-world evidence programs to improve recruitment, strengthen outcomes, and explore new digital biomarkers.

Brian Overstreet, CEO at Arbital Health
Value-based care has a technology problem. It lacks proper infrastructure to correct for the data asymmetry that exists between payers and providers, establishing a shared framework for risk-bearing entities to better manage, measure, and ultimately settle their contracts at scale. Under the current system, risk is being shifted to providers who do not have the data and technology capabilities to manage and understand the performance of their contracts.

This lack of real-time visibility into the performance of their contracts is leading to wild swings in financial performance that are well outside reasonable risk management parameters. Similarly, the providers’ lack of actuarial expertise impacts their ability to manage patient care according to future potential financial performance. While the success of VBC should not be measured solely on financial results, if we cannot measure, predict, and manage those financial outcomes, we will never be able to align those results with better patient care.

Chris Riopelle, Co-Founder and CEO at Strive Health
One of the most important shifts that will shape healthcare in 2026 will be re-evaluating how we support the growing number of adults in the U.S. living with multiple chronic conditions. Trying to effectively manage every condition simultaneously can spread resources thin and limit positive patient outcomes. A more effective path may be to anchor care around a single complex disease, such as kidney disease, that often sits at the center of a patient’s broader health challenges.

When care teams focus deeply on one condition that significantly influences others, visible change inherently occurs across comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. This specialty-driven approach stands in sharp contrast to broad ‘polychronic’ strategies, providing clearer pathways to better outcomes for complex patients.

Jordan Taradash, CEO at PeopleOne Health
The era of ‘sick care’ will give way to true wellbeing. Primary care will evolve into a central hub for prevention, mental health, acute care needs, and chronic condition management. It will integrate data from wearables and digital tools to help people not just get well, but stay well and flourish, bringing the healthcare system closer to its long-held aspirational goal of helping people truly thrive.

Dr. Tim Pflederer, Chief Medical Officer at Evergreen Nephrology
Within the value-based care (VBC) space, we will continue to see a significant distinction between the two approaches in 2026. Some VBC companies employ a non-integrated model that operates independently from providers, focusing on care management, data analytics, and patient engagement within a care specialty. Other VBC companies work closely with the patient’s provider to manage their patients’ overall health.

From collaborating on shared incentives to coordinating workflows, the provider-integrated approach focuses on ensuring patient engagement across the patient-provider experience. As this division in VBC becomes more pronounced, provider-integrated organizations will provide more comprehensive care, better patient experience, and superior outcomes.

Colby Takeda, Co-Founder & CEO at Pear Suite
Everyone is asking for and in need of a rural health transformation program; yet U.S. states still struggle to effectively deploy said initiatives in ways that actually reach vulnerable populations. To address this concern head-on, public health programs should further leverage their frontline health workforce, such as community health workers (CHWs), to better support providers serving disadvantaged patients.

In 2026, states must continue expanding funding mechanisms and prioritize cross-sector collaboration to enhance perception and confidence in rural outreach programs. Then CHWs can be the boots on the ground that government-sponsored and commercial health plans need to scale their programs and connect with patients for culturally responsive, trust-based care interventions. Their involvement helps improve population health by motivating individuals to engage in care and by helping them address the social drivers of health that prevent them from seeking treatment.

Jeff Adams, Growth Leader, Healthcare at Redpoint Global
In 2026, payers will focus on the context surrounding member data, not just the data itself. Fragmented, static, or decontextualized data has historically left health plans wanting more precise and personalized insights on their target populations, and as investments in AI, real-time engagement, and value-based care grow, the need for more accurate member data is pivotal.

Successful plans will shift focus to continually enriching their member data with behavioral, situational, demographic, and longitudinal insights captured from non-clinical sources to paint a more accurate picture of the member’s journey.

This data will then fuel outreach initiatives to motivate them to take action to address their health. A contextualized data shift will strengthen payer-provider collaboration, improve predictive accuracy across the care continuum, streamline interventions for members, and improve population health outcomes.

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time out of their day to submit a prediction to us, and thank you to all of you for taking the time to read this article! We could not do this without all of your support. What do you think will happen for Value-Based Care and Rural Health in 2026? Let us know on social media. We’d love to hear from all of you!

Be sure to check out all of Healthcare IT Today’s Value-Based Care and Rural Health content and our other 2026 Health IT Predictions.

As we wrap up another year and get ready for 2026 to begin, it is once again time for everyone’s favorite annual tradition of Health IT Predictions! We reached out to our incredible Healthcare IT Today Community to get their insights on what will happen in the coming year, and boy, did they deliver. We, in fact, got so many responses to our prompt this year that we have had to narrow them down to just the best and most interesting. Check out the community’s predictions down below and be sure to follow along as we share more 2026 Health IT Predictions!

Check out our community’s Value-Based Care and Rural Health predictions:

Jason Griffin, MBA, CISM, Managing Director of Digital Health/IT Strategy & Cybersecurity at Nordic Global
Rural healthcare will continue to rise to the top of health equity conversations, but it will be less about flashy new tools and more about survival-level strategy. Many of these organizations are staring down a financial cliff while interoperability mandates tighten, and new rural transformation funding models roll out. They’re already operating on razor-thin or negative margins, so it’s no surprise that workforce and cost management sit at the top of their priority lists, with technology and automation ranking much lower.

The risk is that digital transformation gets treated as a ‘nice-to-have IT project’ instead of one of the few levers they actually have to stabilize margins, protect their workforce, and reach more patients.

The rural organizations that pull ahead will reframe digital and data investments as essential workforce and equity strategies, not tech spend. In practice, this means using automation to take low-value work off of clinicians’ plates, standing up telehealth and remote monitoring to extend scarce specialists across a wider geography, and aligning IT roadmaps with clinical and business strategies. It also means recognizing that the communities with the deepest health equity gaps are often the ones most affected by policy shifts, so success can’t just be ‘we turned on the technology.’

In 2026, the leaders to watch will be the ones who build partnerships across states, vendors, and community organizations to share talent, implement the right infrastructure, and bring patients into the digital workflow.

Kathryn Boger, Ph.D, ABPP, Co-Founder and Chief Clinical Officer at InStride Health
In 2026, Measurement-based care (MBC) will finally get its moment in behavioral healthcare. It won’t arrive with a splashy headline, but through a quiet, steady shift as patients and families come to expect it as the norm. Payers will take a sharper interest in understanding outcomes, and more clinicians will use real-time data to guide decision-making.

Libby Sagara, Managing Director at BluePath Health
For years, California’s Medi-Cal managed care plans and FQHCs have led the way in using electronic consult (e-consult) to address rural challenges in access to care by meeting patients where they are, keeping them with their local primary care providers, and connecting with remote specialists. In 2026, we will see many states incorporate this successful model in their approaches to Rural Health Transformation.

Dr. Javeed Siddiqui, Chief Medical Officer at TeleMed2U
The recently announced Rural Health Transformation Program underscores a shared understanding that the 60 million-plus Americans who live in rural America deserve the same level of access, efficiency, and coordinated specialty care as any other population. In the year ahead, we should expect that these communities will make major strides in elevating access to care, which will be made possible through virtual visits. This starts with addressing traditional internet and reimbursement barriers, which will empower even more patients to see specialists without having to travel long distances.

Matt Lambert, Chief Medical Officer at Reveleer
Uncertainty will continue to shape healthcare in 2026, from ACA instability to Medicare Advantage retraction, but we’ll also see meaningful shifts happening underneath the surface. Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) organizations will quietly become the foundation for future MA growth and accelerated Value-Based Care adoption later in the decade as they bring stronger care-management capabilities into risk.

Patient-facing AI will accelerate the rise of ‘AI triage clinics,’ offering faster guidance for complex or rural cases and resetting patient expectations for access, momentum that is further driven by White House-sponsored initiatives aimed at creating more patient-centric healthcare ecosystems. And despite mixed payer enthusiasm, federal momentum will revive remote patient monitoring and other patient-facing technologies. 2026 will be a pivotal bridge year, laying the groundwork for the next wave of value-based transformation.

Denise Murray, Division Vice President, Client Services at TaskUs
In 2026, value-based healthcare will move from aspirational to inevitable. When automation cuts administrative costs by roughly 30 percent while improving outcomes, paying for volume instead of results will look increasingly foolish. Insurers will shift more payments toward proven performance as hybrid-care models (where technology handles the grunt work so people can focus on what matters become standard practice. Most major systems will deploy automated engagement tools and patients will notice the difference in faster service and better personalization. They’ll vote with their feet, choosing providers that can show better results.

AJ Patel, CEO at TeleMed2U
Telemedicine provides the technological infrastructure to deliver care that is more integrated, efficient, cost-effective, and outcome-oriented, which are the fundamental goals of value-based care. That said, in order to be successful in the model, health plans must deploy the right mix of high touch and high tech. This starts with harnessing the measurable value, derived from the human interaction between a patient and provider/care team (especially when it’s a complex care management scenario), the shared trust established between the two, and then layering in technology. It is in these scenarios, when the power of humans and technology are seamlessly brought together, that the clinical and financial impacts are truly magnified.

Jason Bellet, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at Eko Health
In 2026, rural health systems are likely to lean more heavily on AI-enabled detection tools as workforce shortages and limited specialist access continue to strain frontline care. Devices like AI-supported stethoscopes and digital exam instruments will play a growing role in identifying early signs of cardiopulmonary issues during routine encounters.

This will be particularly true in communities where advanced testing or specialty consults aren’t readily available. As integration into everyday clinical workflows improves, AI-enabled tools will help rural clinicians catch concerning patterns earlier and make more informed decisions about when patients need follow-up or escalation. Supporting earlier detection without overburdening already stretched health systems will result in a healthier population.

David Ever, Senior Director of Solutions Marketing at Laserfiche
In 2026, rural healthcare organizations will face both pressure and opportunity to modernize as the $50 billion Rural Health Fund takes effect. With limited budgets and IT resources, these providers will increasingly adopt enterprise content management (ECM) solutions to close the long-standing technology gap with larger health systems.

By embracing ECM, these providers can automate records management, strengthen compliance, and enable secure data sharing across care networks, which are critical steps toward bridging the technology gap that has long separated rural health systems from their larger counterparts.

Over the next year, expect to see a surge in ECM adoption across rural healthcare as organizations prepare to capitalize on federal funding. The result will be leaner, more digitally connected operations that improve patient information management, accelerate remote care delivery, and ensure financial stability through better billing transparency and regulatory compliance.

Shaji Nair, Founder and CEO at Friska AI
Lifestyle data, including nutrition, activity, sleep, and glucose trends, will be recognized as clinically meaningful and increasingly used to shape quality measures, early interventions, and reimbursement models. We expect payers to incorporate continuous lifestyle signals into quality and payment frameworks because of their potential to close care gaps far more quickly than episodic clinic visits.

As a result, validated data will become the gold standard, with health systems prioritizing vendors that deliver clean, clinically reliable lifestyle information rather than unverified consumer feeds. Ultimately, pharma and life sciences organizations will also embrace metabolic signals and begin using lifestyle and CGM-based endpoints in trials and real-world evidence programs to improve recruitment, strengthen outcomes, and explore new digital biomarkers.

Brian Overstreet, CEO at Arbital Health
Value-based care has a technology problem. It lacks proper infrastructure to correct for the data asymmetry that exists between payers and providers, establishing a shared framework for risk-bearing entities to better manage, measure, and ultimately settle their contracts at scale. Under the current system, risk is being shifted to providers who do not have the data and technology capabilities to manage and understand the performance of their contracts.

This lack of real-time visibility into the performance of their contracts is leading to wild swings in financial performance that are well outside reasonable risk management parameters. Similarly, the providers’ lack of actuarial expertise impacts their ability to manage patient care according to future potential financial performance. While the success of VBC should not be measured solely on financial results, if we cannot measure, predict, and manage those financial outcomes, we will never be able to align those results with better patient care.

Chris Riopelle, Co-Founder and CEO at Strive Health
One of the most important shifts that will shape healthcare in 2026 will be re-evaluating how we support the growing number of adults in the U.S. living with multiple chronic conditions. Trying to effectively manage every condition simultaneously can spread resources thin and limit positive patient outcomes. A more effective path may be to anchor care around a single complex disease, such as kidney disease, that often sits at the center of a patient’s broader health challenges.

When care teams focus deeply on one condition that significantly influences others, visible change inherently occurs across comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. This specialty-driven approach stands in sharp contrast to broad ‘polychronic’ strategies, providing clearer pathways to better outcomes for complex patients.

Jordan Taradash, CEO at PeopleOne Health
The era of ‘sick care’ will give way to true wellbeing. Primary care will evolve into a central hub for prevention, mental health, acute care needs, and chronic condition management. It will integrate data from wearables and digital tools to help people not just get well, but stay well and flourish, bringing the healthcare system closer to its long-held aspirational goal of helping people truly thrive.

Dr. Tim Pflederer, Chief Medical Officer at Evergreen Nephrology
Within the value-based care (VBC) space, we will continue to see a significant distinction between the two approaches in 2026. Some VBC companies employ a non-integrated model that operates independently from providers, focusing on care management, data analytics, and patient engagement within a care specialty. Other VBC companies work closely with the patient’s provider to manage their patients’ overall health.

From collaborating on shared incentives to coordinating workflows, the provider-integrated approach focuses on ensuring patient engagement across the patient-provider experience. As this division in VBC becomes more pronounced, provider-integrated organizations will provide more comprehensive care, better patient experience, and superior outcomes.

Colby Takeda, Co-Founder & CEO at Pear Suite
Everyone is asking for and in need of a rural health transformation program; yet U.S. states still struggle to effectively deploy said initiatives in ways that actually reach vulnerable populations. To address this concern head-on, public health programs should further leverage their frontline health workforce, such as community health workers (CHWs), to better support providers serving disadvantaged patients.

In 2026, states must continue expanding funding mechanisms and prioritize cross-sector collaboration to enhance perception and confidence in rural outreach programs. Then CHWs can be the boots on the ground that government-sponsored and commercial health plans need to scale their programs and connect with patients for culturally responsive, trust-based care interventions. Their involvement helps improve population health by motivating individuals to engage in care and by helping them address the social drivers of health that prevent them from seeking treatment.

Jeff Adams, Growth Leader, Healthcare at Redpoint Global
In 2026, payers will focus on the context surrounding member data, not just the data itself. Fragmented, static, or decontextualized data has historically left health plans wanting more precise and personalized insights on their target populations, and as investments in AI, real-time engagement, and value-based care grow, the need for more accurate member data is pivotal.

Successful plans will shift focus to continually enriching their member data with behavioral, situational, demographic, and longitudinal insights captured from non-clinical sources to paint a more accurate picture of the member’s journey.

This data will then fuel outreach initiatives to motivate them to take action to address their health. A contextualized data shift will strengthen payer-provider collaboration, improve predictive accuracy across the care continuum, streamline interventions for members, and improve population health outcomes.

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time out of their day to submit a prediction to us, and thank you to all of you for taking the time to read this article! We could not do this without all of your support. What do you think will happen for Value-Based Care and Rural Health in 2026? Let us know on social media. We’d love to hear from all of you!

Be sure to check out all of Healthcare IT Today’s Value-Based Care and Rural Health content and our other 2026 Health IT Predictions.