Hearing First Hand How AI is Being Applied in Healthcare at Navina’s Ascend 2026 User Event

User conferences are always exciting, but there’s something particularly special about a company’s first user conference.  Healthcare IT Today was honored to be invited by Navina to attend their first user event called Ascend.  As a regular user conference attendee, Navina’s event team deserves applause for putting on such a seamless event.  Despite many conferences struggling to get provider attendees, Navina was so successful attracting its users to attend that it had to expand to a 2nd hotel.  Needless to say, there’s a lot of interest in how you can best apply AI solutions in healthcare.

Throughout the conference I shared a number of the key insights from the speakers talking about AI, value based care, government policy, and much more.  Below you’ll find many of those insights along with some additional commentary.

Navina’s Ascend 2026 was particularly good as their CEO started off the event asking for their users to help them be better.  Certainly Navina had plenty of products and features to share with their users.  However, there was  sincere desire by the Navina team to hear from their users how they could make their product better.  That was a really refreshing perspecive.

It was interesting to hear how low everyone rated value based care efforts to date.  As mentioned above, I think the low grade is because the panel giving the grades believes there’s so much more that could be done.

I was fascinated by Meg Fitzgerald’s perspective that AI needs to be done through the lens of the clinician.  Do you agree or disagree?  What lens would you suggest AI be done from?  Does it change based on the solution?  Should it be through the lens of the patient?

The number of models that companies like Navina are developing is astounding to me.  It illustrates how refined and specific the models are getting.  I also love how they’ve classified models into Structure, Reason, and Generation.  This along with the list of agents they’re building for population health illustrates how much more sophisticated AI is getting in healthcare.

Hard to imagine a healthcare AI solution that’s not using these principles (although, we’ll likely be surprised over time).  However, it’s great to see that Navina has articulated them so they can codify them into the culture of their company.  Plus, now their users are going to hold them accountable to these principles.  That’s a powerful thing.  Plus, Navina seems very sincere in these efforts.

I’m always fascinated by numbers from companies.  The most interesting from a value based care perspective is the number of care gaps that have been closed thanks to Navina.  However, the increase in clinician satisfaction may be the most valuable even if it’s hard to measure.

I love this idea from Jacob Reider.  It’s a tough balance to provide high quality guardrails while still providing a space for experimentation and testing out new approaches.  I agree with Reider though that we need a space where we can experiment more in a very thoughtful way.  This should be the culture of every healthcare organization.

This story from Keith Fernandez has really stuck with me.  It stuck with me since I’ve heard many like it.  Value based care does a lot to improve these incentives, but we definitely need to adjust how we measure success.

Every patient has experienced the fact that healthcare isn’t really a team sport.  There are some really incredible individuals in heathcare.  However, we really do need the healthcare team to collaborate in providing the best care.  Otherwise, the patients suffer.

I was fascinated to hear this tailwind and headwind.  I’m not sure most healthcare provider organizations see consumerism as a tailwind.  However, it is a huge opportunity to work with engaged patients.  If they don’t, it seems like another entrepreneurial organization will fill that hole.  Inflation as a headwind makes a lot of sense.  I don’t think we quite know all the ways that’s going to impact healthcare, but it seems clear that the supply chain costs are going up and that will impact healthcare oganizations in a major way.

What one word would you use to describe value based care?  I’d have said data.  It’s the basis of successful VBC and it’s often lacking even though we’ve made huge strides.

The Navina Ascend user conference was particularly interesting because tech was a component of most things, but the reality is that the policy and operations were as important and likely more important than the technology.  Tech makes a lot of things possible that weren’t possible before, but it’s humans and policy that really have to enable the behaviors you want to achieve quality outcomes.

This analogy came from the audience and seemed to share the consensus about the new ACO LEAD program and how it’s trying to get more people to embrace ACOs versus supporting those that have already been doing ACO work.

Just to dive into the decision healthcare organizations are making when it comes to MSSP and LEAD, this 2×2 framework was really helpful.   There’s definitely a little more nuance to the matrix, but it’s a decent way to think about the various VBC options.

I’ve found this to be true as well.  The leaders at HHS/CMS/ONC/etc are much more accessible than what most of us realize.  As Reider shared, they may not be able to say much because they can’t show preferential treatment, but they can certainly listen and those stories will stick with them as they make and adjust policies.

One of the standout comments I kept hearing over and over at Navina Ascent was about provider engagement.  It seemed very clear that pretty much every effort required engaged clinicians to make it successful.

I’d love to hear what people think of this idea.  Is revenue a byproduct of good quality care?  More importantly, is that how most organizations are approaching the care they provide and the businesses they run?

This may seem obvious to those deep in value based care, but I think many will find these three levers interesting: Risk Adjustment, Quality Management, and Cost and Utilization.

I loved this simple idea.  A good benchmark from your region can help you understand so much about how you’re doing.  Thanks to CMS for making a lot of that data available.

I thought that this simple idea really embodied Navina’s approach to their AI solutions.  As a company they’re not just trying to create great tech.  Usage really is king and highlights the quality of the product.

A  big thank you to the Navina team for being so welcoming to myself and their users.  It was great to hear some of the successes organizations were having leveraging AI in their healthcare organizations.  You could see how the technology was really helping the users that attended.  However, I also got the feeling that Navina was just getting started in what it wanted to accomplish.  I’m excited to see where they go next.

User conferences are always exciting, but there’s something particularly special about a company’s first user conference.  Healthcare IT Today was honored to be invited by Navina to attend their first user event called Ascend.  As a regular user conference attendee, Navina’s event team deserves applause for putting on such a seamless event.  Despite many conferences struggling to get provider attendees, Navina was so successful attracting its users to attend that it had to expand to a 2nd hotel.  Needless to say, there’s a lot of interest in how you can best apply AI solutions in healthcare.

Throughout the conference I shared a number of the key insights from the speakers talking about AI, value based care, government policy, and much more.  Below you’ll find many of those insights along with some additional commentary.

Navina’s Ascend 2026 was particularly good as their CEO started off the event asking for their users to help them be better.  Certainly Navina had plenty of products and features to share with their users.  However, there was  sincere desire by the Navina team to hear from their users how they could make their product better.  That was a really refreshing perspecive.

It was interesting to hear how low everyone rated value based care efforts to date.  As mentioned above, I think the low grade is because the panel giving the grades believes there’s so much more that could be done.

I was fascinated by Meg Fitzgerald’s perspective that AI needs to be done through the lens of the clinician.  Do you agree or disagree?  What lens would you suggest AI be done from?  Does it change based on the solution?  Should it be through the lens of the patient?

The number of models that companies like Navina are developing is astounding to me.  It illustrates how refined and specific the models are getting.  I also love how they’ve classified models into Structure, Reason, and Generation.  This along with the list of agents they’re building for population health illustrates how much more sophisticated AI is getting in healthcare.

Hard to imagine a healthcare AI solution that’s not using these principles (although, we’ll likely be surprised over time).  However, it’s great to see that Navina has articulated them so they can codify them into the culture of their company.  Plus, now their users are going to hold them accountable to these principles.  That’s a powerful thing.  Plus, Navina seems very sincere in these efforts.

I’m always fascinated by numbers from companies.  The most interesting from a value based care perspective is the number of care gaps that have been closed thanks to Navina.  However, the increase in clinician satisfaction may be the most valuable even if it’s hard to measure.

I love this idea from Jacob Reider.  It’s a tough balance to provide high quality guardrails while still providing a space for experimentation and testing out new approaches.  I agree with Reider though that we need a space where we can experiment more in a very thoughtful way.  This should be the culture of every healthcare organization.

This story from Keith Fernandez has really stuck with me.  It stuck with me since I’ve heard many like it.  Value based care does a lot to improve these incentives, but we definitely need to adjust how we measure success.

Every patient has experienced the fact that healthcare isn’t really a team sport.  There are some really incredible individuals in heathcare.  However, we really do need the healthcare team to collaborate in providing the best care.  Otherwise, the patients suffer.

I was fascinated to hear this tailwind and headwind.  I’m not sure most healthcare provider organizations see consumerism as a tailwind.  However, it is a huge opportunity to work with engaged patients.  If they don’t, it seems like another entrepreneurial organization will fill that hole.  Inflation as a headwind makes a lot of sense.  I don’t think we quite know all the ways that’s going to impact healthcare, but it seems clear that the supply chain costs are going up and that will impact healthcare oganizations in a major way.

What one word would you use to describe value based care?  I’d have said data.  It’s the basis of successful VBC and it’s often lacking even though we’ve made huge strides.

The Navina Ascend user conference was particularly interesting because tech was a component of most things, but the reality is that the policy and operations were as important and likely more important than the technology.  Tech makes a lot of things possible that weren’t possible before, but it’s humans and policy that really have to enable the behaviors you want to achieve quality outcomes.

This analogy came from the audience and seemed to share the consensus about the new ACO LEAD program and how it’s trying to get more people to embrace ACOs versus supporting those that have already been doing ACO work.

Just to dive into the decision healthcare organizations are making when it comes to MSSP and LEAD, this 2×2 framework was really helpful.   There’s definitely a little more nuance to the matrix, but it’s a decent way to think about the various VBC options.

I’ve found this to be true as well.  The leaders at HHS/CMS/ONC/etc are much more accessible than what most of us realize.  As Reider shared, they may not be able to say much because they can’t show preferential treatment, but they can certainly listen and those stories will stick with them as they make and adjust policies.

One of the standout comments I kept hearing over and over at Navina Ascent was about provider engagement.  It seemed very clear that pretty much every effort required engaged clinicians to make it successful.

I’d love to hear what people think of this idea.  Is revenue a byproduct of good quality care?  More importantly, is that how most organizations are approaching the care they provide and the businesses they run?

This may seem obvious to those deep in value based care, but I think many will find these three levers interesting: Risk Adjustment, Quality Management, and Cost and Utilization.

I loved this simple idea.  A good benchmark from your region can help you understand so much about how you’re doing.  Thanks to CMS for making a lot of that data available.

I thought that this simple idea really embodied Navina’s approach to their AI solutions.  As a company they’re not just trying to create great tech.  Usage really is king and highlights the quality of the product.

A  big thank you to the Navina team for being so welcoming to myself and their users.  It was great to hear some of the successes organizations were having leveraging AI in their healthcare organizations.  You could see how the technology was really helping the users that attended.  However, I also got the feeling that Navina was just getting started in what it wanted to accomplish.  I’m excited to see where they go next.