Radio Advisory

(This episode originally aired on February 10, 2026. Dr. Omar Lateef has since announced his intention to retire from Rush Health in June 2027.)

As financial pressure mounts and the healthcare safety net continues to strain, academic medical centers are drawing on their culture of innovation to pursue better outcomes — and narrow life expectancy gaps in the communities they serve.

In this episode of Radio Advisory, host Rae Woods sits down with leaders from Rush University Medical Center to explore how health systems can stay focused on results amid tightening margins, political scrutiny, and ongoing uncertainty in grant funding.

Dr. Omar Lateef, President and CEO of Rush, and Dr. David Ansell, Senior Vice President for Community Health Equity, describe how Rush treats gap-reduction as a long-term operating strategy rather than a moral or messaging exercise. They share practical examples of how local partnerships, targeted investments, and day-to-day operational choices can improve outcomes while still making financial sense — and why avoiding battles over language helps keep the focus squarely on results.

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Sponsor link: Preserving iodine, protecting imaging

(This episode originally aired on February 3, 2026. Stay tuned towards the end of the conversation for an update on the state of pediatric hospitals midway through 2026.)

Pediatric hospitals are one of the most important segments in the industry to watch right now. Although children’s hospitals make up only 5% of total hospital market share, more than 40% of U.S. children rely on Medicaid, leaving pediatric organizations disproportionately exposed as the Medicaid-related provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act take effect.

The pressures inside pediatric care were mounting even before this moment. After years of outperforming adult hospitals, children’s hospitals have seen margins fall from double digits to just 1% last year. Rising bad debt, higher supply and labor costs, a rapid shift toward lower margin outpatient care, and emerging challenges like declining birth rates and vaccine policy upheaval have created a perfect financial storm. While some of these dynamics are unique to pediatrics, the sector also offers an early warning signal for the rest of healthcare — and an opportunity to translate lessons across both worlds.

In this episode, host Abby Burns and Advisory Board expert Vidal Seegobin break down why pediatric leaders must simultaneously manage immediate-term margin pressure, prepare for a more ambulatory-dominant model, and futureproof their organizations amid shifting demographics. Vidal also shares actionable steps leaders can take now, along with the critical lessons pediatric hospitals offer the wider healthcare ecosystem.

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Sponsor link: Q&A: How e-prescribing for vaccines may help close patient care gaps

(This episode originally aired on March 17, 2026.)

As health systems pursue growth beyond traditional avenues, the role of the strategic planner is becoming increasingly complex. High level directional data is no longer enough — achieving meaningful, differentiated growth now requires leveraging granular, sophisticated data to inform investment decisions.

In this episode, host Rachel Woods sits down with Advisory Board experts Sebastian Beckman and Ellie Wiles to explore how health systems can rethink strategic planning for 2026 and beyond. Together, they unpack what it should actually look like to democratize data, why data governance matters just as much as data access, and how service line leaders can partner with planners to make faster, more precise, margin savvy decisions.

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Sponsor link: How UCHealth lowered population-level obesity rates in their region

For years, regional health plans benefited from powerful tailwinds: Medicare Advantage growth, Medicaid expansion, and a prospering ACA marketplace. But many of those growth engines have stalled, just as new pressures emerged: rising utilization, runaway spend, pricing uncertainty and more scrutiny from patients and policy makers. The result is a dramatically different financial reality for health plans. In 2024, only eight of 33 Blues plans reported positive operating margins.

In this episode, host Rae Woods sits down with Jared Landis, Vice President of Advisory Board's Health Plan Research practice, to unpack how regional plans got here and the three-year turnaround strategy regional and Blues plans are now pursuing.

Together, they explore the market forces that upended the payer playbook, the operational and pricing changes plans are making to stabilize performance, and how AI-enabled transformation could reshape the future of the insurance business.

Stay tuned to the end of the episode for an update on the Rural Health Transformation Program, including a key deadline this fall.

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Sponsor link: Precision in motion: How digital tools support diabetes care providers

A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

In this episode, Abby Burns welcomes back Megan Zweig, CEO of Rock Health Advisory, to answer audience questions submitted during Advisory Board's Research Summit in Carlsbad, California.

Together, they explore how health systems are engaging with the explosion in consumer-generated data, the role of medtech and pharma in AI-enabled innovation, and why AI enablement may be able to unlock personalized care for a wider range of patients.

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Rock Health

• H1 2026 funding and market overview: Durable roots, shifting routes | Rock Health

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Advisory Board members: Action requested! Help shape Advisory Board’s next research agenda by taking our quick survey — share your priorities and challenges to ensure our research reflects what matters most to healthcare leaders like you.

Nearly 70% of adults ages 65 and over skipped the latest COVID vaccine. Learn how health systems can treat vaccine uncertainty as a routine care gap — not patient resistance — by reading Advisory Board’s expert insight.

A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

Oncology is simultaneously one of healthcare's greatest success stories and one of its biggest financial challenges. Cancer care continues to benefit from breakthroughs in precision medicine and early detection, even as oncology spending is projected to approach $200 billion by 2029. At the same time, cancer programs are facing rising patient volumes, growing demand for advanced therapies, and mounting pressure to improve access and affordability.

In this episode, hosts Abby Burns and Chloe Bakst welcome oncology expert Gaby Marmolejos to break down the trends shaping cancer care in 2026 and beyond. Together, they explore improvements in community-based access to advanced therapies, the promise of multi-cancer early detection testing, and the reimbursement challenges threatening program sustainability.

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Help shape Advisory Board’s next research agenda by taking our quick survey — share your priorities and challenges to ensure our research reflects what matters most to healthcare leaders like you.

A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

Value-based care is entering its accountability era. Participation in value-based arrangements continues to grow, even as financial pressures weigh down on both providers and payers. But CMMI is setting a clear tone about what it expects from stakeholders moving forward: results.

Host Abby Burns sits down with Advisory Board experts Clare Wirth, Payton Grimes, and Rhea Jain to explore what’s changed — and what hasn’t — in value-based care. From Medicare Advantage turbulence to the push for specialist engagement and greater downside risk, the group breaks down what leaders need to know about how the value-based care landscape is evolving.

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Help shape Advisory Board’s next research agenda by taking our quick survey — share your priorities and challenges to ensure our research reflects what matters most to healthcare leaders like you.

A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

After years of uncertainty, many healthcare executives say they’ve experienced more change in the past five years than in their entire careers. Policy shifts, evolving patient expectations, and rapid advances in AI are all colliding at once — forcing leaders to rethink how they operate and where they invest.

But here’s the surprising part: the overwhelming sentiment isn’t panic. It’s clarity.

In this episode, host Rachel (Rae) Woods sits down with Advisory Board researchers Morghen Philippi and Marisa Nives to share what they’re hearing from months of research conversations with leaders across the ecosystem. Together, they offer a grounded look at how peers, partners, and competitors are thinking right now — where leaders are aligned, where they’re making different bets, and what they’re prioritizing next.

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Q&A with a clinical pharmacist: Reimagining diabetes care

A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

Digital health funding is heating up—but where are the dollars going? And what does it mean for health systems’ digital health strategies?

In this live episode, recorded at Advisory Board’s Research Summit, host Abby Burns sits down with Megan Zweig, President and CEO of Rock Health Advisory, for an update on what’s going on in the world of digital health funding. Together, they unpack what investment activity looks like and explore questions around what constitutes an investable thesis in 2026, how health systems are—or could be—engaging in the startup ecosystem, and what it takes to be a good incubation partner.

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The role of pharmacists in cardiometabolic care

A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

As health systems anticipate greater downward pressures on margins in the months and years to come, they’re homing their growth strategies accordingly. As we’ve been saying in our research the past couple of years, “sustainability” is now the name of the game. Here’s the conundrum: our research also shows that 90% of systems are betting on the same growth plays as their competition. And more and more, those bets converge on a common goal: win more commercial volumes.

In this episode, host Abby Burns sits down with Advisory Board experts Shay Pratt and Emily Heuser to unpack the three main avenues health systems are exploring to win commercial volumes: ambulatory care, service lines, and direct-to-employer contracting. For each, they explore a “hard truth” and corresponding mindset shift leaders must face as they weigh what it will take to generate margin-accretive growth.

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Learn more about Advisory Board’s 2026 summit series.

A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.