By Ivan Bartolome, President & CEO, HealthSearch Partners
2026 is the year of the Horse, the Winter Olympics and the World Cup. It also continues to be the year of the Patient!
I have been fortunate to have a courtside seat as the health care industry has evolved since I started as a hospital leadership intern in 1988. Throughout that time, technology and science have continuously collided to improve medicine and modalities to enhance patient care, improve quality of life and save lives. The business of health care has changed along with medical care. It’s serious business, yet I still see the majority of organizations laser-focused on patient care. That’s why I’m confident 2026 will be The Year of the Patient!
The healthcare industry and its leadership are adapting and changing. This includes surges in executive hiring and “trendy” hirings, as organizations do their best to deliver higher quality at lower cost while protecting the physicians and workforce that deliver care. We have all watched as organizations ramp up and tamp down their hiring to meet the needs of their communities while protecting financial viability for reinvestment. During the pandemic, and now post pandemic, we have seen strong organizations remain strong and get even stronger. We have also seen weak organizations become weaker. Clearly, we will see consolidation and hospital closings continue as the reality of the business of health care becomes more acutely rigid. As reimbursement and external funding sources dwindle, healthcare executives must rise to the occasion or find themselves in the back seat.
Over my career I’ve observed that every four years there is a pause in executive hirings as our industry waits to see the outcome of a national presidential election. Then, a month or two after the election, executive hirings surge to fix normal attrition and address strategic needs. However, 2025 was different, as we saw most healthcare organizations continuing to wait to hire new executives. Financial pressures and uncertainty about reimbursement appear to have many organizations in a “wait and see” mode. Many have decided to “stand pat’ with a team of executive leaders including leaders who have been given expanded responsibilities or who have received reasonable promotions. Whatever the rationale, most seem content with keeping the cost of employing executives flat or even treating it as a cost savings if a rehire is avoided. These pressures have now, in my opinion, put many good executives on the sidelines, anxious to lead again.
So, when will we get back to ‘normal’ in America’s health care C-Suites? I think the answer is never. How we fundamentally lead health care is changing. The reality is we will have to do it with fewer executives. Financial pressures are only increasing, and C-suites are adapting. The executive position that seemed so necessary in 2020 might be unnecessary now.
My colleague, and former hospital CEO, Doug Duffield observes, “We’re witnessing a permanent shift in how healthcare organizations are led. Roles that once made sense structurally may no longer be viable financially, but the obligation to the patient hasn’t changed. In fact, it’s heightened. This generation of healthcare leaders will be defined less by hierarchy and more by judgment, clarity, and an ability to keep the patient at the center of everything they do, amid constant constraint.”
In addition, my colleague Tom Spindler, a long-time health care executive and former leader of Vizient’s C-suite executive networks, sees similar headwinds for health care executives. “The evolving healthcare environment, including financial pressures and uneven access to healthcare services across our country, will require increasingly innovative and collaborative leaders willing to ‘step off the curb first’ to truly meet the needs of current and future patients in the populations they serve. This can’t be achieved in isolation. Leaders of provider organizations must create avenues to work together.”
“What’s becoming clear is that fewer titles and flatter structures don’t absolve leadership of responsibility, they intensify it,” Duffield says. “As organizations streamline, the executives who remain must be relentlessly focused on decisions that improve patient outcomes while sustaining the workforce that delivers care. Efficiency only matters if the patient ultimately benefits.”
In 2026 we will learn more about how health care organizations will organize themselves and prepare to care for patients for the next decade. There’s no going back to the ways things were. My only plea is that we all do our part to make sure the patient is at the center of what we collectively do. Profit and financial sustainability are necessary but should never overshadow the needs of the patient.
