GO News | Real-Time Security: How Medical Technology, Analysis, and Services Enable Patient Safety to Shift from "Post-Event Reporting" to "Real-Time Improvement"

Nitin Naik:AI is creating new possibilities across healthcare, but where do you see the most practical opportunities for Sentact and its customers to benefit from it?

Daniel Hart:I believe AI will transform healthcare, as it will many other industries. At the same time, the need for a trusted partner will remain important. We have talked within our organization about how massive technological change creates discomfort, and where there is discomfort, there is an opportunity for a trusted partner to help organizations navigate that change.

For Sentact, I see AI as a force multiplier. It creates opportunities to improve the efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and quality of our technology-enabled services, including outsourced credentialing and external peer review. It can also help us enhance our software development and introduce new capabilities into our products.

From a customer perspective, we are exploring ways to integrate AI into our applications to help healthcare organizations turn information into action. For example, our analytics products can provide AI-generated summaries that surface signals a Chief Medical Officer may want to investigate. In our rounding product, we are moving toward ambient listening to help prioritize patients who need attention, with the aim of supporting improvements in safety and quality measures, such as reducing falls and hospital-acquired conditions.

At the same time, we need to be thoughtful about how AI is developed and deployed in healthcare, particularly given the sensitivity of the data involved and the importance of delivering appropriate care. Ultimately, I see AI as an opportunity to make our organization more efficient and enable us to do more for our customers, while accelerating the value they receive from our products and services.

Nitin Naik:As Sentact brings more capabilities together, how are you seeing customers respond? Are they adopting the integrated portfolio all at once, or are their needs leading them toward a more gradual approach?

Daniel Hart:The broader portfolio has created more opportunities for us to support customers in different ways. We are seeing interest in combinations of solutions that address related needs. For example, a customer may use both our rounding and safety huddle tools, or combine peer review with analytics to support the quality function.

In practice, customers are not usually adopting the entire platform in one step. More often, we start by identifying a specific problem. That might be a need raised by a Chief Patient Safety Officer, a Chief Experience Officer, or someone responsible for regulatory readiness. We address that need with an appropriate solution and then explore adjacent opportunities over time.

This approach allows us to build from an established customer need rather than asking an organization to take on a broad portfolio all at once. It also creates opportunities to connect solutions as the relationship develops.

One lesson we have learned is the importance of integration. We want to avoid simply assembling a collection of disparate products that do not work well together. The value comes from how the capabilities connect, how information can be aggregated, and how that information can support activity across the organization.

That is why we continue to focus on a connected portfolio, bringing together technology, analytics, and services in ways that solve multiple problems for healthcare organizations.

Nitin Naik:Sentact has used acquisitions to establish its technology and analytics capabilities. How are you now balancing acquisitions with internal innovation as you build the next phase of the business?

Daniel Hart:When we began building the Sentact of today in 2023, we had a vision to create a portfolio of products and services supporting safety, quality, risk, and compliance. Establishing a presence in technology and analytics required us to evaluate whether to build capabilities ourselves or acquire them.

The acquisitions we made helped establish the foundation for that vision. They gave us the capabilities from which we could build a broader portfolio, rather than having to develop every component from the ground up.

We are now in a position to do more internally. We have an analytics and product development organization in place, and we are investing in these capabilities. This gives us an opportunity to innovate on the technology foundation we have established and create more value for customers.

Going forward, the balance is shifting toward more internal development and partnerships, while remaining selective about acquisitions. The objective is not simply to add more products. It is to build a portfolio in which the capabilities naturally work together and support our overall vision.

Nitin Naik:Healthcare technology is evolving quickly, and integrating new capabilities also requires people to adapt. How does Sentact’s culture support innovation and help the organization respond to customer needs?

Daniel Hart:We have worked hard to create a culture in which people feel heard and valued, and where we can respond to customer needs as quickly and effectively as possible.

Our core values are accountability, results-driven, authentic, gritty, collaborative, and resourceful. These values are an important part of how we introduce ourselves when we bring an organization into Sentact through an acquisition. They help establish the expectations and behaviors that we want to define the organization.

Culture is particularly important when a company is going through significant change. We are adding new products and services, whether through acquisitions or other means, while the healthcare industry itself is dealing with financial pressure, workforce shortages, and the arrival of AI.

We need an organization that can adapt to those changes while remaining focused on customers. Building a healthy culture helps equip our employees to work together, respond to customer needs, and support the success of the healthcare organizations we serve.

Nitin Naik:Looking ahead, what do you believe healthcare leaders may be underestimating about the future of patient safety and care quality?

Daniel Hart:I believe safer care leads to exceptional care. When healthcare organizations embrace operating principles that support safer care, they are also putting themselves in a position to operate more effectively.

Traditionally, safety has often been addressed by reviewing data after an event or looking at performance metrics retrospectively. Organizations would analyze the information, identify areas for improvement, and create projects to address those findings.

The opportunity going forward is to improve safety and quality in real time. Healthcare organizations need to consider whether they have the tools in place to identify relevant signals, support practitioners, and influence performance while care is being delivered, rather than relying primarily on reports about what has already happened.

That is where the combination of technology, analytics, and services can make a difference. By putting useful information into the hands of practitioners and supporting them in acting on it, healthcare organizations can work toward improving their performance in the present.

My message to healthcare leaders is to keep safety as the North Star. A sustained focus on safer care can also help organizations run more effective operations.

For Daniel Hart, the future of healthcare performance depends on connecting patient safety with the everyday decisions and activities that shape care delivery. As healthcare organizations face financial pressure, workforce shortages, and increasingly complex operating environments, digitizing workflows alone will not be enough. The next step is to make data more actionable, use analytics to support timely decisions, and apply AI where it can help practitioners and healthcare leaders respond more effectively.

Sentact’s strategy reflects this shift through a portfolio that combines technology, analytics, and specialized services. Its approach to customer-led product development, portfolio integration, and internal innovation is designed to help healthcare organizations address immediate operational needs while building toward broader improvements in safety and quality.

The underlying principle is clear: patient safety should not be treated solely as an outcome measured after the fact. It should be embedded in the way healthcare organizations operate, supported by tools and expertise that help people identify where action is needed and respond in time to make a difference.