More than 200 people from healthcare, research, technology, entrepreneurship, policy, and investment gathered around New Mexico care. Here's what they shared.
Premier sponsor
SYNCRONYS, New Mexico's health information exchange, presented HealthAI 2026 and helped open the day.
Executive sponsors
MECA Therapies presented The First 1,000 Days. The New Mexico Technology & Innovation Office co-presented the Ecosystem Breakfast.
Innovation & startup showcase sponsor
Builders VC brought six national and New Mexico companies to the stage.
Across care and technology
The day explored AI, maternal health, rural care, and new approaches. Conversations continued at 20 themed lunch tables, the Ecosystem Breakfast, and two interactive walls.
New Mexico's care context
Critical Access Hospitals, rural clinics, and community health centers serve New Mexico across long distances. New tools must fit those settings.
Who came, and why
A senior, mostly New Mexico-based room, led by healthcare organizations and the partners who work with them. About half came for AI strategy and governance, and more than two-thirds were open to exploring new technology.
Themed lunch tables helped people compare notes on shared interests:
Healthcare organizations and payers, from health systems and FQHCs to behavioral health, home care, and Medicaid plans, made up about a quarter of the room, roughly even with the companies building for them. The rest were the research, government, nonprofit, and funding partners who help good ideas reach practice.
Half chose AI strategy and governance. Among care topics, telehealth and remote monitoring, population health, behavioral health, and rural health led. Also chosen: quality, maternal and infant health, bioscience, equity, workforce, chronic disease, social needs, tribal health, cancer care, and revenue cycle.
At registration, we asked whether people would be open to exploring new technology in their organization. 71% said yes or wanted to learn more, and only 4% said no. Among healthcare organizations and payers who answered, more than four in five were open. This was a room ready to act, not just to listen.
44% hold an executive title, many of them founders. On the buyer side, directors and managers were the largest group: the people who run a pilot day to day.
86% are based in New Mexico; half are in the Albuquerque area, with Santa Fe, Las Cruces, and Rio Rancho well represented. Most out-of-state registrants were visiting company teams.
From the stage
Why health innovation matters now, what AI can actually do, how health systems evaluate tools, what patients will expect next, and a charge to New Mexico to start proving what's possible.
Stefany opened the day with her own family's healthcare journey and the places it broke down, then asked the room to imagine a different future and carry that question through every session.
Joseph Villa showed how models turn speech into transcripts, transcripts into notes, prose into structured data, and images into detections. He warned against "AI washing": routine workflows sold as autonomous intelligence.
Ling Kung shared Kaiser Permanente's three evaluation lenses and six questions for vendors.
Drawing on how Amazon One Medical builds consumer-first, tech-enabled care at national scale, Adrienne Adams looked at what patients will expect over the next five years, and what has to be true for organizations of any size to meet them there.
Angelica closed the day by challenging New Mexico to stop waiting for other states to figure it out first, and to take the day's conversations back to their organizations and start proving what's possible here.
What we heard
Participants named five care and technology challenges at the Problem Wall.
Attendees flagged disconnected EHRs, unreliable data, inaccurate diagnoses or medications, mismatched test results, and claims gaps. Trusted records are essential for AI.
Access to specialists, primary care, behavioral health, affordability, and workforce capacity surfaced. Telehealth and remote monitoring could strengthen rural care.
Missed handoffs leave patients and families navigating care alone. One participant described weeks after discharge before a care team knew.
Attendees explored AI for documentation and prior authorizations, with people reviewing outputs. Good data and oversight matter.
Pilot funding, reimbursement, clinical validation, and startup access to health systems surfaced. Smaller innovators asked where early funding comes from. Technology needs evidence and support to reach care settings.
Better data, coordination, and workflows reinforce one another. Promising tools also need clinical partners.
What we imagined
The afternoon Big Idea Wall captured six ways to improve care.
Attendees pictured a shared record for patients, families, and clinicians across settings.
Care teams and specialists communicating across visits and organizations.
AI-assisted documentation and navigation, with clear oversight and less repetitive work.
Faster specialist access, community services, rural infrastructure, and prevention.
Better information sharing, treatment access, partnerships, reimbursement, and care delivery.
A health technology incubator, local startup partnerships, and support for testing and implementation.
Beyond the stage
The audience followed one program. Company showcases followed related sessions. Three pillars guided the day.
Before the summit, seventeen leaders from care delivery, the state health information exchange, both national laboratories, academic medicine, tribal leadership, commercialization, and economic development met for an hour. Co-presented with the New Mexico Technology & Innovation Office, the breakfast focused on lasting partnerships, easier patient navigation, process improvement, and New Mexico's rural, tribal, and payer realities.
Leaders discussed clinical needs, validation, reimbursement, and partners. Healthcare teams considered which tools fit and merit testing. Emerging companies need clinical feedback and evidence.
Innovation Showcase
AI platform helping people with cancer and chronic conditions organize records and find treatments and clinical trials.
The stake: the founder had 976 interactions with the health system since his diagnosis in 2023.
Family-centered virtual mental healthcare for children and teens, where they already spend time.
The stake: parents are excluded from children's care most of the time; including them is essential.
Remote maternal and fetal monitoring beyond the clinic, including patients far from specialists.
The stake: a high-risk mom can travel 200 miles round trip, up to twice a week, for a 30-minute monitoring test.
New Mexico–built maternal health company developing AI-enabled care coordination and personalized support for birthing families.
The stake: most maternal deaths in New Mexico are preventable; much maternal care is outside the largest urban areas.
A payments rail for Medicaid social care, combining health plan, waiver, and grant dollars into one billable encounter.
The stake: community health workers, promotoras, doulas, and tribal CHRs reach rural New Mexicans. They can't bill, so the work ends with the grant.
Telehealth and AI connect post-acute care facilities with clinicians when coordination breaks down.
The stake: at 2 a.m., care can depend on who answers the phone. A large share of nursing-facility hospitalizations is potentially avoidable.
In their words
What attendees valued
Attendees valued themed lunch tables and interactive walls. They asked HealthInno for:
What's next
HealthAI is moving to a biennial format. The next full summit is planned for 2028.
HealthInno is exploring smaller gatherings between summits and sharing more New Mexico healthcare innovation. Four priorities emerged.
Join HealthInno's statewide network for updates and roundtables. Health ImpACT is our state-backed initiative to build an innovation pilot and learning network. It helps New Mexico healthcare leaders set priorities, review vetted tools, and consider structured pilots. One year in:
HealthAI attendees: watch your inbox for photos, available presentations, and summit resources.
The day in pictures
Photography by Stephanie Schultz.
Thank you
Thanks to every HealthAI 2026 speaker, sponsor, partner, and attendee. Your perspectives will shape continued work for New Mexico healthcare. We're building something that lasts, shaped by New Mexico, for New Mexico.
Special thanks to Heiner Productions, event coordinator; Vital Voice Marketing; Exhibit Solutions for staging; Journey Home Media for AV; Stephanie Schultz for photography; and the Embassy Suites team for hosting.
