By Sandra Johnson

Healthcare technology is overcrowded with innovation. Right now, there are over 14,000 digital healthcare ventures worldwide and more than 3,500 AI health startups in the US. The inundation of the market with these new tools has spurred CIOs from curiosity to action. Around 52 percent of 2025 CHIME Survey respondents report active use of AI-powered tools, while 48 percent are still evaluating. Problematically, there are approximately 600 AI health applications that have implemented AI and a mere handful of EHRs with AI-natively built-in, resulting in a market oversaturated with bolted on point solutions that create extra work for IT and clinicians rather than reducing it. Those same CIOs actively engaging with AI are already feeling point solution burnout, and nine out of 10 are ready right now to go past point solution to EHRs featuring fully embedded AI.

Complexity and integration challenges are driving the demand for native AI

Managing multiple third-party point solutions isn’t uncommon in healthcare. In fact, a recent survey found that more than 55% of health organizations still use between 50 and 500 point solutions for health operations, and there are others using hundreds and even thousands more. This kind of volume creates extreme integration overhead across procurement, contracts, engineering, and security reviews. Within all these solutions, 81 percent of CIOs are overwhelmingly searching for ways to make work easier across their organizations through the automation of administrative tasks, according to the CHIME survey. While deployments remain fragmented, native AI can reduce the number of separate integrations required to manage existing workflows and limit the need for constant bespoke connections. In turn, that lowers operational burdens, reduces complexity, and with the right foundational EHR technology, makes automation deliverable at scale.

Regulatory and compliance risks make native AI an increasing necessity
Regulatory compliance and data governance are nonnegotiable in healthcare, and CIOs are prioritizing these areas now more than ever. Nearly 40 percent of CHIME respondents said that security and compliance are top concerns for AI adoption, and nearly half rank native AI in EHRs as critical because these built-in tools can inherit and streamline security controls and vendor-managed compliance processes. Embedding AI directly into the core platform avoids ad hoc data flows and reduces exposure to numerous external contacts. Native architecture also simplifies audit trails, access controls, and incident response while enabling centralized governance that regulators require.

Artificial Intelligence Homepage