AI in action: How strategic partnerships accelerate healthcare innovation

This white paper was previously published in Becker’s Hospital Review as a sponsored content piece.

AI isn’t just talk — it’s transforming healthcare. Health systems are adopting AI at more than twice the pace of the broader economy, and startups are driving the momentum, capturing 85% of healthcare AI spending.¹ Through strategic partnerships, these innovators are reimaging care, streamlining operations and delivering measurable ROI.

During Becker’s 13th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, health system executives, founders of innovative AI startups and Labcorp Venture Fund leaders, discussed the state of AI in healthcare. The conversation — sponsored by Labcorp, whose venture fund invests in and partners with early-stage mission-driven healthcare startups — focused on the power of early-stage innovators to drive change and the role of trusted connectors.

Innovators step up to meet health system demand 

Health systems face profound and persistent challenges — rising demand for care, continued staff shortages, overburdened clinicians, margin pressures and regulatory compliance. Despite these challenges, health systems remain focused on increasing access to care, closing care gaps, improving the patient experience, and improving outcomes and equity.

With potential benefits and enhancements to clinical decision-making, reduction of administrative burdens and a more personalized experience, AI’s emergence as a tool to meet these goals is both powerful and evolving. Startups, including those backed by the Venture Fund, are laser-focused on solving these problems, including three who spoke at the event: Praia Health, Artisight and Prenosis. 

Praia Health, born from an incubation team at Providence and now an independent company, is redefining patient engagement with AI-powered simplicity. Its patient-facing app quietly uses AI behind the scenes to remove friction and improve the care experience.

Traditionally, lab scheduling has been a cumbersome and clunky process. Where patients once had to hunt for a lab, make calls, and would often miss or reschedule appointments, AI-enablement leveraged by Praia flips that script, centered on a seamless scheduling experience. The results speak volumes: a 50% jump in bookings, an 8x increase in kept appointments, and when patients miss, 40% reschedule themselves within 30 days. “This was through a better, frictionless experience with lab ordering,” says Justin Dearborn, CEO of Praia Health. 

Artisight is building the smart hospital of the future — where virtual nursing and observation free clinicians from administrative burden and boost efficiency. With AI serving as a true copilot, patients are able to be monitored in a more safe, proactive manner. “We’re taking work off of their plate,” said Vikas Ghayal, president of Artisight. Each Artisight client has realized a reduction in falls and a decrease in one-on-one sitter hours, according to Mr. Ghayal. 

Prenosis is bringing precision medicine to the front lines of acute care — where one-size-fits-all protocols have long dominated. Traditionally, in emergency departments, the same protocols are used for sepsis regardless of whether the patient is a healthy 20-year-old or a 65-year-old with late-stage cancer; data harness capabilities through Prenosis seek to change that practice.

By harnessing data from multiple sources, Prenosis evaluates each patient’s biological state and matches them to the right treatment. Its breakthrough? The first and only FDA-approved diagnostic tool for sepsis and using 22 parameters, it predicts sepsis within 24 hours and assigns a risk level — low, medium, high, or very high. For high or very high risk patients, the tool triggers immediate intervention, accelerating care when every minute counts; emergency departments using Prenosis’ diagnostic tool boost sepsis bundle compliance by 15–25% within months — and see a roughly 20% lift in billing and coding accuracy.

“It’s a funnel, starting with early warning systems that lead to an AI sepsis diagnostic, which if high or very high, starts to guide treatment,” said Bobby Reddy, Jr., PhD, CEO of Prenosis. “This is how step by step we’re affecting the whole workflow paradigm and bringing precision medicine to acute care.”

Overcoming barriers to adoption through strategic partnerships

Innovative AI startups are closing care gaps, even as they battle challenges of adoption and scale. Health systems juggle competing priorities, and staff can be slow to embrace change.

Startup leaders agree that success hinges on strong clinical champions and strategic partners, and that IT support alone is not likely to drive the full potential and promise of innovation. To secure funding and resources, they suggest that health systems need a clinical advocate who can rally stakeholders and drive buy-in.

Beyond internal champions, startup leaders cite success with strategic partners who can accelerate adoption. For startups working with Labcorp, partnership brings trust, credibility, and clinical validation — plus trial-generated evidence and access to Labcorp’s extensive health system network, making scale possible.

“As an early-stage company, partnering with an organization like Labcorp — a trusted brand in 60% to 70% of the hospitals in the country — helps with scaling and with the trust factor,” Mr. Dearborn said.

For Prenosis, partnering with Labcorp has been valuable in terms of research and evidence generation. “Labcorp has significant resources on the clinical research side and we’ve been working with them to set up a clinical trial network,” Mr. Reddy explained.

Choosing the right AI partners

For health system leaders, navigating the AI vendor landscape can be daunting. Hundreds of AI-focused healthcare companies crowd the market — and new ventures launch constantly. In one example, Advocate Health, one of the nation’s largest health systems, evaluated roughly 225 different AI solutions as part of its AI strategy to reduce clinical documentation by more than 50%.

Furthermore, health systems want speed — but every AI vendor decision must be strategic and thoroughly vetted to ensure long-term value and minimize risk. According to 2025: The State of AI in Healthcare, in picking AI partners, leading health systems like Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente, prioritize production-ready solutions that can be deployed quickly, don’t interfere with patient care and can deliver rapid ROI.

It’s clear that health system leaders want AI that solves real problems — with clinical rigor, high-quality data, and ethical deployment. These solutions are expected to provide credible evidence of measurable outcomes, matching proof to the promise of AI.

To achieve that outcome, early-stage AI founders see two distinct mindsets in health systems: an aim to buy and deploy quickly or a more partnership-centered view, collaborating to co-create solutions that deliver lasting impact.

“Everyone is overwhelmed,” Mr. Ghayal said. “There’s hundreds of AI companies using AI. What we’ve noticed is that the organizations we work closely with are looking for trusted advisors. They want a true partnership, not a vendor type of relationship.”

Other startup leaders believe that beyond providing technological prowess, AI startups need to be great listeners and be flexible in adapting solutions for each health system.

Accelerating the impact of AI as a catalyst and trusted connector

Labcorp’s mission is simple: improve health and improve lives. One way it delivers on that mission is by forging strategic partnerships that accelerate innovation — whether through diagnostic leadership, clinical trial expertise, or a growing portfolio of AI solutions.

Since 2012, Labcorp’s venture fund has invested in 85 early-stage digital health, diagnostic, and health IT startups. More than half have partnered with health systems to tackle critical challenges. But Labcorp isn’t just an investor — it’s a connector and catalyst. The company collaborates with portfolio startups on pilots, clinical validation, co-development, and commercialization to scale impact.

Labcorp leaders know transformation requires ecosystem thinking. “We’re not just an investor or healthcare leader — we’re a trusted connector, bringing together science, technology, and clinical expertise to drive meaningful change,” says Isabelle Schein, Labcorp’s director of new ventures and strategic alliances.

It’s clear, then, that healthcare innovation — regardless of age or technology — continues to happen beyond department organization or even hospital walls. It thrives when institutions, startups, clinicians, and patients unite around shared goals and open collaboration — embracing the digital technology and pathways of tomorrow in responsible, measured ways.