As industry pressures mount, clarity of direction is key. Drawing on more than two decades of experience leading operations, medical management and value-based care initiatives across payer and provider organizations, I've seen firsthand how workforce strain, financial pressure, access challenges and quality demands intersect. Today’s healthcare leaders must navigate these realities with practical execution-focused strategies that address the challenges of an overstretched workforce while sustaining high performance and patient trust. The following 10 priorities represent the issues that should be at the top of healthcare leaders’ agendas this year.
- Foster a Workforce for Tomorrow
The workforce crisis remains a huge challenge for many healthcare organizations. As clinical and nonclinical shortages continue, traditional staffing models aren’t working.
Leaders can adjust course by exploring flexible scheduling, team-based care models and ways to support a diverse multigenerational workforce. Skill development and career mobility can help reduce turnover while engaging employees in redesigning workflows.
- Strengthen Financial Resilience
Persistent margin pressure continues to challenge healthcare leaders. Financial resilience depends on rapid-cycle improvement, disciplined margin stewardship and focused capital prioritization. Scenario planning and forecasting can help leaders anticipate changes in reimbursement and utilization, allowing for more confident decision-making during ongoing volatility.
- Advance Health Equity and Access
Health equity is an important component of high-quality care and a measure of organizational performance. If leaders are to improve access for older adults, rural communities and underserved populations, reviewing all data is a good first step. This can help identify disparities that reveal structural barriers to delaying or preventing care. In addition, expanding language services and improving transportation support helps organizations improve outcomes and strengthen patient trust.
- Operationalize AI Responsibly
AI adoption is accelerating, but when an AI system is implemented without clinical context or operational discipline, it can introduce new friction, cause increased denials and unintentionally harm patient access. Instead of using AI to replace judgment, organizations can apply it to improve accuracy upstream, where inefficiencies originate.
Many administrative processes persist because legacy systems haven’t recalibrated. By reviewing low-value prior authorizations that cost more to administer than the service, and using AI to assess approval likelihood, documentation completeness and risk patterns before submission leaders can prevent avoidable denials. When applied with input from clinicians and operations leaders, AI reduces administrative burden, shortens delays and improves access so organizations can focus human expertise on oversight, fraud detection and complex decision-making.
- Recommit to Clinician Well-Being
Clinician burnout continues to trend, driven by workload and administrative friction embedded throughout the care journey. Leaders can take meaningful action by reducing low-value tasks that divert clinicians from patient care and add little clinical or financial return. When operational systems function as intended, clinicians spend more time practicing at the top of their license, which boosts morale, retention and patient care.
- Redesign Care Delivery for the Aging Population
The aging population will continue to put pressure on healthcare systems, requiring proactive and efficient care models. To address this, leaders can focus on redesigning pathways that reduce fragmentation across scheduling, referrals, diagnostics and follow-up care. Closing gaps between primary care specialists and post-acute services helps prevent delays and complications that disproportionately affect older adults.
- Prepare for Greater Value-Based Care Risk
As value-based care expands, organizations need to bolster their ability to manage risk across the continuum of care. This requires visibility into utilization patterns, referral behaviors and care settings that drive both cost and outcomes.
Leaders might consider focusing on integrated operating models that support informed decision-making at each touchpoint. When teams understand where variation occurs and why it occurs, organizations can redirect care and intervene earlier to prevent expensive complications.
- Improve Patient Experience Through Operational Excellence
Patient experience is shaped by operational reliability and clinical quality. Missed calls, delayed authorizations, unclear instructions and fragmented communication all contribute to dissatisfaction and disengagement.
Leaders can improve patient experience by ensuring scheduling, eligibility verification, referrals and follow-up processes work together seamlessly. Clear expectations, proactive communication and timely coordination can reduce delays and uncertainty for patients.
- Fortify Technology and Operational Resilience
Technology resilience extends beyond cybersecurity to include how well systems work together across an organization. Fragmented tools that address individual functions without integration often recreate the same inefficiencies they are meant to solve.
To address this, leaders might prioritize cohesive platforms and operating models that reduce hand-offs, rework and manual intervention. Standardized processes, clear escalation paths and testing can help organizations respond to disruption while maintaining continuity of care and operational stability.
- Lead with Clarity, Accountability and Purpose
Strong leadership is defined by the ability to align people around shared priorities, even in times of uncertainty. Clear and direct communication, reinforcing and rewarding accountability, and ensuring that decisions remain grounded in the organization’s mission are just a few ways leaders can bring people together.
By prioritizing solutions that simplify operations and improve outcomes, leaders can resist organizational inertia and create an environment in which teams perform effectively and patients benefit from reliable, accessible care.
These 10 priorities signal a move away from incremental fixes toward more deliberate, accountable leadership. The path forward will require clarity of purpose, disciplined execution and a willingness to address the root causes of inefficiency. By focusing on accuracy, access, trust and performance, healthcare leaders can navigate change while delivering sustainable, patient-centered care.
Kat Marie Alvarez, RN, is founder/CEO, KATALYST & Co., and an ACHE and CEO Circle member.