8 min More than 300 healthcare leaders from payer, provider, life science, and technology organizations gathered in Philadelphia for Aggregate, Arcadia’s annual customer event, October 6-8, 2026. Across three days of user training, peer-led learning, and cross-industry collaboration, one question kept surfacing: how do we turn data we trust into action that improves outcomes? Here are 9 takeaways that stand out.
1. The real gap is action, not information
Healthcare isn’t short on data. Clinicians and care teams are short on time to sift through it for signals that matter. The Arcadia Ascent™ healthcare performance platform is built around a closed loop: trust the data, see what to do, act on it, then measure the result. AI teammates support that loop by surfacing rising risk before a visit, helping care managers decide who to call first, and finding patients who are overdue for screenings.
Arcadia has observed care management productivity increase by 75 percent and while reducing hospitalizations by nearly 25 percent where this approach is in use. Knowing is not the same as doing, and results follow when the two are connected.
2. Measurable results come from data plus engagement
There is no better way to demonstrate the impact of actionable data than by highlighting the winners of the 2026 Arcadia Awards. More than 30 nominations were scored by a panel of peers to determine the winners. The results below were announced at the Arcadia Awards on Day 2.
- Innovation in Action: Seattle Children’s Care Network. Seattle Children’s united 17 independent practices in a six-week, March Madness-style competition. The network improved performance by 10.6 percent, with HPV vaccinations up 18 percent and developmental screenings up about 15 percent. One practice improved its baseline by more than 64 percent.
- Champions for Change (tie): Ochsner Health and Guidehealth. Across 80,000+ heart failure patients, Ochsner’s readmissions fell from 18.8% to 17.18%, admissions dropped 9.75 per 1,000, and length of stay fell 5.4% (4.47 to 4.23 days). On CKD, the team raised education visits about 320%, and is working toward 80% of Stage 4 members seen by nephrology. Together the two programs generated more than $5M in measurable financial impact.
- Transformation Excellence: Pediatric Health Network. The network fixed data gaps at the source and improved multiple quality measures. That work helped raise a payer contract from 3.4 to 4 stars, worth tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
- Meaningful Momentum: Tandigm. This team moved from retrospective reporting to proactive care using prioritized registries. It reviewed and acted on nearly 70 percent of its identified high-risk patients, stepping in before crises developed.
- Advocate of the Year: Brett Bailey, Director of Clinical Analytics, Baptist Health. This inaugural award recognized exceptional partnership and generosity toward the value-based care community.
3. The US is spending far more and gaining far less
Aggregate 2026 opened with a sobering macro view from Amit Shah, MD, Senior Partner, and Zachary Greenberg, Partner, both of McKinsey & Company. Since 2000, real health spending per person in the US has risen 88 percent, from about $7,500 to $14,100, according to McKinsey’s analysis. Over that period, life expectancy gained 27 months, and healthy life expectancy gained only eight1.
The encouraging finding is that the tools already exist to change this story. McKinsey estimated that about 80 percent of the potential reduction in disease burden could be delivered through the traditional healthcare system, using proven, cost-effective interventions2. The winners, they argued, will master three disciplines: technology innovation, care model innovation, and human organizational change.
That last one matters. In McKinsey’s October 2025 Gen AI Healthcare Survey, 85 percent of payer, provider, and health services and technology organizations named difficulty integrating generative AI into existing workflows as a top barrier to scaling it. Read how Arcadia helps organizations scale responsible AI adoption.
4. Policy must reach the point of care to be effective
Day 1 also brought two panels that put policy, payer, provider, and purchaser perspectives on one stage. In The Future of Accountable Care: Aligning Policy, Purchasers, and Performance, Mara McDermott, Chief Executive Officer of Accountable for Health; Lee Lewis, Chief Strategy Officer and GM Medical Solutions at Health Transformation Alliance; and Amy Bagge-Smith, General Counsel and Head of Regulatory Affairs at Arcadia, explored how the pieces fit together.
A second conversation, From Policy to Execution: How Healthcare Leaders Are Responding, was moderated by Aneesh Chopra, Chair of the Arcadia Institute. It featured Emily Brower, President and Chief Executive Officer of NAACOS; Arshad Rahim, MD, MBA, FACP, Chief Medical Officer, Aetna; and Rodrigo Cerda, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer, Mount Sinai.
The through line across both panels was moving from policy intent to day-to-day performance, as Lewis offered a “lions and gazelles” analogy: in a fast-moving environment, slowing down is what lets you maneuver.
5. Trust in data is the foundation
Every outcome starts with data that leaders believe in. Reports that show scores without explaining what they mean, or that only surface after they affect performance, won’t foster adoption.
The answer is a source-first approach. Arcadia checks data at a standardized layer and sorts findings by owner, so teams know whether a fix belongs to Arcadia, to the customer, or to the source system. Nick Stepro, Arcadia’s Chief Technology Officer and President of Data, shared that roughly 75 percent of data issues within the Arcadia platform are now resolved through automated agents without manual intervention.
6. AI works best when it is governed, explainable, and well-directed
Arcadia believes restraint is important when introducing AI into clinical decision-making workflows. Assistive AI belongs inside the clinical workflow, stays opt-in, and preserves clinician judgment. Every suggestion needs explainability, provenance, and guardrails. Similarly, providers need to see why a condition is suspected, and a single data error can cost the trust that took years to build. Arcadia’s automated chart review reflects this, extracting risk and quality codes with supporting evidence attached for a human to validate.
Getting value from AI also takes skill. In a hands-on workshop, analysts tried Conversational Analytics, Arcadia’s natural-language capability grounded in customers’ patient data. Three habits made the biggest difference:
- Be specific about the year, service line, and measure instead of asking, “How are we doing on quality?”
- Treat it as a conversation by starting small, following up, and opening a new chat for each topic.
- Ask the tool to state its assumptions, revealing the logic behind an answer.
7. Network strategy is a continuous practice
Specialists drive a large share of cost, and variation between them is where savings and quality gains hide. Arcadia CareJourney’s Provider Intelligence solution scores providers from one to five on cost and quality, using risk-adjusted, market-relative methodology that is fully disclosed, which helps earn physician buy-in.
In an Aggregate training session, Arcadia presented a case study of a value-based primary care organization that used it to build a preferred network for knee replacements. Patients routed there saved about $1,000 per case, with 13 percent fewer emergency department visits and 39 percent fewer unplanned readmissions. Presenters framed network work in hockey terms: know who is on your roster, decide who plays together, and make sure the best players get the puck. Refresh the data and repeat.
8. Risk and contract success reward preparation
Strong risk programs work three ways at once: before the visit through registries and huddle reports, at the point of care inside the EHR, and after the fact through dashboards that validate documentation. Customers agreed that the hardest part is provider buy-in, which comes back to evidence and trust.
Contract preparation matters just as much. With the CMS Innovation Center’s LEAD model slated to replace ACO REACH in 2027, an Arcadia session walked through selecting provider groups with market data, modeling benchmarks, and testing sensitivity. In Arcadia’s demo, a 2 percent rise in total cost of care cut projected savings nearly in half. Organizations that model early and monitor all year avoid December surprises.
9. Technology adoption is measured by outcomes, not logins
A session on platform adoption challenged a familiar metric. Counting active users isn’t enough. What matters is whether the right people use the right tools in workflows tied to objectives, and consistent use correlates with better results, including more closed quality gaps and fewer ED visits.
The practical step is simple: tag users by role and practice so usage can be compared with intended workflows. Organizations also shared ways to re-engage quiet users, including one-on-one training, targeted webinars, and building login expectations into scorecards.
Rise to what’s next
Aggregate 2026 reinforced a simple idea: trusted data, clear next steps, and measurable results belong together. The organizations making the most progress aren’t waiting for perfect conditions. They are fixing data at the source, engaging their teams, and keeping people in charge of every decision AI informs.
Arcadia also announced that Aggregate 2027 will be held in Phoenix, AZ, October 12-14. Registration is now open for Arcadia customers. Register today for 40 percent off.
Want to bring these strategies to your organization? Connect with Arcadia.
Citations
1 (McKinsey Health Institute analysis, using Global Burden of Disease data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 2021)
2 (McKinsey Health Institute Prioritizing Health Model, which draws on about 300 interventions)
