By Dan Schubert, CEO & Co-Founder, Revuud
The biggest challenge in healthcare IT is no longer technology.
It’s how healthcare systems find, engage, and manage expertise. For CIOs and CTOs, this has become a structural problem, not a temporary staffing challenge.
Cloud platforms are mature. EHR ecosystems are powerful. AI is no longer experimental. Yet healthcare IT leaders still face delayed projects, stalled optimization, and rising costs.
The issue is not vision or investment.
It is the talent model supporting the work.
The legacy consultant model still looks like this:
This model persists because it feels familiar. It feels safe.
But safety and effectiveness are no longer the same thing.
Healthcare IT leaders are under pressure to modernize faster, optimize existing platforms, and do more with constrained budgets. At the same time the pace of change across AI, data, cybersecurity, and digital care is accelerating.
According to research from HIMSS on healthcare digital transformation and AI adoption health systems are increasingly focusing on AI integration and operational optimization as part of digital health initiatives. This shift requires targeted expertise not long-term headcount replacements.
The traditional staffing model was designed for scale and simplicity in a different era.
It is increasingly misaligned with how healthcare IT work actually gets done today.
The gig economy is often discussed as a workforce trend.
In healthcare IT it is becoming an operational advantage. Not as informal gig work, but as a more precise, on-demand expertise model.
Today’s most effective consultants are not generalists rotating from one long engagement to the next. They are specialists who move quickly, bring pattern recognition from multiple health systems, and focus on outcomes rather than tenure.
That shift aligns with broader industry trends. In 2026 healthcare operations are expected to evolve around connected systems and AI, including workforce management and optimization strategies highlighted by Becker’s Hospital Review on 2026 healthcare trends.
For healthcare systems this model delivers real benefits:
This is not about replacing internal teams.
It is about extending them intelligently.
Certifications and system experience will be table stakes.
What will matter more is how consultants think, communicate, and operate inside complex healthcare environments.
The consultants delivering the most value today consistently demonstrate:
Healthcare IT leaders increasingly recognize that execution gaps are operational not purely technical. Thought leadership conversations on platforms like Becker's Hospital Review regularly highlight how leadership and process issues are often at the root of stalled initiatives.
Evaluating consultants purely on resumes and relationships no longer works.
Modern healthcare systems need visibility into how consultants actually perform.
AI is already changing how healthcare IT work gets done.
Its next major impact is how organizations identify, evaluate, and deploy expertise.
Forward-looking healthcare leaders are beginning to ask better questions:
AI enables healthcare systems to move beyond guesswork. This includes understanding which skills perform best in specific environments, where projects tend to stall, and how engagement decisions impact outcomes over time.
It supports smarter matching between projects and expertise, better visibility into performance patterns, and faster decision making without adding administrative overhead.
This is not about removing human judgment.
It is about augmenting it with intelligence that legacy staffing models simply cannot provide.
This shift is not just happening at the consultant level.
It is happening at the leadership level.
Healthcare systems that succeed in 2026 will rethink how they approach third-party talent. They will:
The question is no longer “Who do we know?”
The better question is “How quickly can we access the right expertise and how confidently can we deploy it?”
This shift is accelerating because healthcare systems can no longer afford slow learning cycles. Every delayed project, misaligned engagement, or underperforming consultant compounds operational and financial pressure.
Healthcare IT is entering a new era.
One defined by continuous optimization, AI enabled execution, and flexible specialized expertise.
Clinging to legacy staffing models may feel comfortable. But it limits speed, visibility, and control at a time when all three matter more than ever.
The reset is already underway.
The only question is whether your talent model is keeping up.
At Revuud we believe healthcare systems deserve a better way to find, engage, and manage IT consultants.
One that is transparent, data driven, and built for how healthcare work actually happens today.
If you are rethinking how you access expertise in 2026 and beyond we would welcome the conversation.
Explore a modern approach to healthcare IT talent at Revuud.
If you are actively rethinking how your organization engages third-party expertise, we would welcome the conversation. Let’s chat.
A healthcare IT talent model is the framework a health system uses to find, engage, and manage internal and third-party IT expertise. Traditional models rely heavily on staffing agencies and long-term placements. Modern talent models focus on flexibility, specialization, transparency, and outcomes, often supported by data and AI to improve decision-making.
Staffing agencies were built for speed and scale, not precision. As healthcare IT work shifts toward optimization, AI enablement, cybersecurity, and analytics, systems need highly specialized expertise at specific moments. Relationship-based placements and static resumes make it harder to match the right skills to the right work and to measure performance over time.
AI helps healthcare systems move beyond manual evaluation and guesswork. It can surface patterns in consultant performance, improve matching between skills and projects, and provide visibility into what works across different environments. This allows IT leaders to make faster, more confident talent decisions without adding administrative burden.
Technical skills remain important, but they are no longer enough. The most effective consultants demonstrate strong business and clinical context, clear communication, accountability, and adaptability. Consultants who use AI tools to improve speed, accuracy, and decision-making are increasingly valued by healthcare organizations.
Third-party consultants should be treated as a strategic extension of internal teams, not as interchangeable resources. Healthcare IT leaders should prioritize transparency, performance visibility, and repeatable engagement models that focus on outcomes rather than placements.
No. This shift is about complementing internal teams with flexible, specialized expertise when and where it is needed. Modern talent models help internal teams move faster, reduce risk, and focus on high-value work without increasing permanent headcount.