How will generative AI software be evaluated by the FDA in the future? What’s next for point-of-care ultrasound? What steps have been successful in facilitating adoption of AI applications across enterprise systems? Leaders in radiology and health care will be discussing these topics and more at the upcoming HLTH USA conference.
Whether it’s the scaling of clinical AI, the increasing utilization of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS), data governance with AI and how the FDA may evaluate generative AI applications in the future, the HLTH USA conference offers a number of sessions that may of be interest to radiologists.
Here are four noteworthy sessions on tap for the HLTH USA conference, taking place November 15-18, 2026 in Las Vegas.
In an interview earlier this year for CDO (Chief Data Officer) Magazine, Eftekhari noted the ongoing challenge of fragmented patient data and emphasized the importance of improving interoperability between AI agents across different operating systems.1
“Do we have all patient data — images, genomics, everything — in one place, easily accessible and analyzable in a longitudinal manner? That’s something we are still working on,” said Eftekhari. “ … Having the sequence of all events for one patient in one place is something that would unlock a lot of different AI applications.”1
2. Scaling AI Across the Enterprise (2:30–3:10 p.m., November 15)
Offering insights about navigating AI evaluation and implementation, this panel discussion includes the following speakers: Shannon Sims, MD, PhD, chief product officer at Vizient; Tara Bishop, MD, founder and managing director at Black Opal Ventures; Jaimie Weber, MD, vice president, associate chief of medical informatics and AI strategy officer at Tampa General Hospital; and Jordan Dale, the chief health AI officer and CMIO at Houston Methodist.
Earlier this year, Dale discussed the implementation and expansion of an ambient AI platform from Ambience Healthcare that facilitated a 40 percent reduction in clinical documentation time and an 80 percent adoption rate across different specialties.2
“Ambience took on the challenge of our complex specialty needs and extended its platform to our emergency and hospital medicine teams. As a result, our clinicians can complete documentation with system-wide context more efficiently while dedicating more attention to our patients,” explained Dale.2
3. An Era of Imaging Abundance (10:30–10:50 a.m. PT, November 16). In this session, Joseph DeVivo, president and CEO of Butterfly Network, will discuss the growing use of ultrasound imaging, how it facilitates timely intervention in patient care, and future directions.
Earlier this year, Butterfly Network obtained FDA 510(k) clearance for the Gestational Age tool, an ultrasound-based AI platform that reportedly offers automated fetal age assessments between 16 and 37 weeks.3 Launched in late 2025, the company’s enterprise imaging platform Compass AI has a documented 94 percent compliance rate for point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) exams and facilitates up to a fivefold increase in revenue in comparison to studies with traditional POCUS workflows.4
“Health systems want to expand POCUS and capture more value, but they’ve been held back by undocumented exams, compliance risk and administrative burden that take clinicians away from patients,” noted DeVivo. “Compass AI changes that. It gives organizations the workflows and interoperability to manage POCUS programs at scale — no blind spots, no fragmented care, no added risk. To me, it’s a path to easy money: capturing value that was already there, just being missed.”4
4. Move Fast and Fix Things: Government’s Playbook for Clinical AI (10:50–11:10 a.m., November 17). How can facilities facilitate the scaling up of clinical AI in a safe manner? Can real-time regulation help address rapidly changing algorithms for AI software? Addressing these questions and more in this session are Richard Abramson, MD, MHCDS, FACR, the director of the FDA’s Digital Health Center of Excellence; Haider Warraich, MD, program manager of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-H); and Anjalee Khemlani of Deloitte.
As the FDA explores regulation for generative AI-powered medical devices (with public comments open until October 19), Dr. Abramson conceded during a recent Consumer Technology Association event that the current process for reviewing modalities is insufficient for assessing generative AI applications.5
"I'm absolutely confident that the evidentiary standard for FDA authorization of generative AI tools will change because it's [a] square peg and round hole. Where I want the industry to contribute most and what I want to know is what do we have right, what do we have wrong, where do we need to improve, and what do we need to do together to advance the way that we think about this," noted Abramson.5
(Editor’s note: For more information on the HLTH USA conference, click
References
2. Ambience. Ambience Healthcare announces Houston Methodist enterprise rollout of AI platform to enhance patient care and clinical workflows. Available at:
3. Hall J. FDA clears AI-powered ultrasound tool that determines gestational age in minutes. Available at:
4. Hall J. Can a new AI-powered point-of-care ultrasound platform enhance reporting efficiency and compliance? Available at:
5. Landi H. At CTA event, federal health officials outline AI ambitions as clinicians debate risks. Fierce Healthcare. Available at:
