Why Buyers Stopped Believing Your ROI Story and Other Big Issues in 2026

0:00Colin Hung: So they're really talking about streamlining operations, making sure that you're spending minimal amount of labor to achieve the same goals. And I noticed a lot of the way that people were demoing and talking about their products was really around that. It's less about, hey, here's a great way to improve patient experience or improve clinical experience.

0:24welcome back to the health tech marketing show the award-winning podcast for health tech marketers if this is your first time with us we've got more than 140 episodes in the library library covering everything from ai to demand gen to brand building in healthcare and healthcare technology so hit follow or subscribe wherever you're listening to so you don't miss one. Now, before we get into it, a quick thank you to our syndication partner, Healthcare Now Radio, the 24-7 healthcare-only radio network that carries this show across their platform. I'm so grateful to Roberta and Carol. Thank you for everything you do to get this show in front of more people every week.

1:11And speaking of people who cover this industry for a living. Today's guest is Colin Hung, Chief Editor at Sway Health and Healthcare IT Today. We're genuinely big fans of Sway. Sway Health named us Podcast of the Year this year. And we've also had the privilege of winning Healthcare IT campaign of the year a couple of times in a row. So we don't take that lightly. Those awards mean an awful lot to us. And so it's just great to have Colin here in person. Colin is on pace this year to attend 50 health tech conferences. That's one a week. That means he sees more vendor pitches, more buyer conversations, and more of the real unfiltered mood of this industry.

2:05And he's seeing more of that than probably anyone else's in this industry. Maybe the only other person who probably comes close is his partner in crime, John Lynn. Today, he's giving us that sort of outside in view of what's actually changed in 2026, why buyers have stopped listening to long-term ROI stories and where health tech marketing messaging is starting to blur together. So let's get into it and have a chat with Colin. Colin, welcome back on the show. It's so great to have you here.

2:41Colin Hung: Always a pleasure to be with you, Adam. It's always fun to hop on here and talk about healthcare. Oh, indeed. Now, listen, I think you're one of the best-known people in the health tech community, especially the marketing amongst the marketers. But for the three or four people out there who might not know who you are or know who Sway Health is, tell us about yourself. Well, sure. Yeah. Happy to. Always happy to talk about myself, Adam. But yeah, I've been in healthcare for, I had the privilege of being in healthcare for 25 years. I've worked for a number of healthcare startups and digital health companies in Canada and the US.

3:22Colin Hung: I've helped Those companies grow, and I've been their VP of Marketing or Chief Marketing Officer at those organizations. And for the last almost nine, ten years now, I've been a member of the media covering this industry. So I'm the Chief Editor at Sway Health, which covers it from the healthcare marketing and patient experience perspective. and also an editor at the sister publication, Healthcare IT Today, which covers it more from the technology and the actual software side of things, the IT side of the house. So as I joke, you know, I go to a lot of conferences. I get a chance to speak to a lot of people.

3:58Colin Hung: I do a lot of interviewing and discovery and I just, I love what I do and I love healthcare. Well, it's a good job because you work so hard at it. I mean, you know, last time you were on show, you called yourself a professional conference attendee. That really stayed with me. I love that. So, okay, we're not fully through 2026, but we're through three quarters of it. First of all, I'm kind of curious is that how many events have you been to this year? And then more importantly, like what's different about what's going on in the industry and what you're hearing at these events in 2026 versus last couple of years?

4:40Colin Hung: Yeah. So I'll answer all these questions, hopefully, if I remember them. So first of all, when I last counted, I think I'm at 29 conferences attended so far in 2026. So I'm on pace to get to about 49, 50, somewhere around that range by the end of the year. One a week. Yeah, almost. Yeah. Now, a lot of them, some of them are back to back. Some of them, thankfully, this year, I ended up being in the same city. So I just literally hop from one conference to the other. And some are local. So there's a lot of local events. I live here in Toronto, which, you know, there's a lot of local events. So I can go to multiple in Toronto.

5:15Colin Hung: You know, it's easy for me. So it's so of those, you know, 20 odd plus, I think about seven of those were in Toronto. So they're local for me. So not always requiring me to hop on an airplane. But yeah, it's been quite a lot. And yeah, by the end of the year, I think it should be around 50 or so, which is about average for me in a given year. which again, I'm privileged to do and don't take it for granted. And it is such a thrill for me to be able to go to so many because I love talking to people and I love learning about new technologies and new things. But it does allow me to do one thing which is unique, which is to see trends across different sectors of healthcare and see some things that are happening and some commonalities and some differences, right?

5:57Colin Hung: So everything from what's happening in the radiology world at RSNA to what's happening in the HIM world at AHIMA and CHIMA and other events like that. So it's always a lot of fun. So the question was, is like, well, so are you seeing changes in what the conversation is about this year versus previous years? Yeah, great question. Thank you for the reminder. Yeah, so in 2026, I think the biggest change is that the economy has taken a much more front and center spot in the conversation, not necessarily on what's on people's booths or anything, but in terms of the conversations happening in and around the conference, it's all around financial performance and the economy.

6:41Colin Hung: And it's been so many hits. Like healthcare cannot control what's happening with the greater economy. We're just at the whim of the economy. However, you know, when the economy is doing well, more people can afford care, blah, blah, blah. That's how it goes, right? Also, with supply chains being what it is and transportation costs being what they are, it is more expensive for healthcare to operate now. And that's nothing to do with labor, although labor costs have remained relatively stagnant year over year. It's not like we've had a huge increase in nursing costs or doctor's costs or anything like that.

7:17Colin Hung: But the costs of consumables, the cost of equipment, the new equipment and things that had to be shipped from somewhere. or even, and I mean somewhere, meaning from Chicago to Dallas, right? It costs more because fuel costs are up. And so there was a lot of discussion this year about that, whereas last year it was kind of like, ah, well, we have some uncertainty about the economy, but we should be okay. In 2026, it's really starting to hit the bottom lines of a lot of people. Yeah. And for some, that talk has turned to cuts. And I'm meaning some layoffs, but more, Or, hey, you know that project we had that we're thinking about?

7:53Colin Hung: Yeah, we're not going to do it. Like we're going to put that on hold. Or that project that's in flight, we're going to cut back our requirements and really simplify and just go for the minimum. Those nice to haves that we were thinking about, off the table. So it's a lot more of that talk that's happening in 2026 across the board, whether it's a marketing related initiative or an IT one. Very interesting. And are you, that sort of, you know, that certainly reflects the buyer's perspective and also the market's perspective because the budgets are getting cut. But when you talk to maybe some of the salespeople or the sort of the executives that run some of these organizations, are you hearing them say, yeah, it's a lot tougher environments for selling?

8:31Are they fessing up to that yet?

8:32Colin Hung: Some of them are. Some of our friends who we're really close with, they know that we don't spill the beans, right? We don't air the laundry. But yes, I mean, there has a lot more talk about longer sales cycles, much more focus on ROI and payback periods. but more than that it's about I'll call it immediate value it used to be where you could talk about oh you'll get a return and it really starts to hit in year three or four that talk has almost gone out the window if you say that to somebody right now they're like okay I'll talk to you later right it almost has to be like what am I seeing in three months what impact can you have for me in three months because any project that's longer than that I'm not saying no forever but And I'm saying no right now because everyone's looking for that immediate value impact.

9:18Colin Hung: That has been a big change in tone from 25 to 26. So the economy and the financial climate is what's not on the booth, but that's certainly the topic of conversation. But what is it the vendors are promoting? What are the big themes that you're seeing out there? And I'm going to say, I would do really unfair, which is, and can you do it without saying AI? That is a good one. So some of this, as we got later in the season so far, like as we got closer towards the summer, I did notice some of the changing verbiage that started to appear on people's websites and their marketing materials and the way they talked about their solutions.

9:59Colin Hung: so one of the buzzwords that sort of come out later in the season was operational efficiency so they're really talking about streamlining operations making sure that you're spending minimal amount of labor to achieve the same goals maybe not as eloquently as that but sort of in those words were starting to appear in a lot of people's conversations and I noticed a lot of the way that people were demoing and talking about their products was really around that It's less about, hey, here's a great way to improve patient experience or improve clinical experience. It's more about, let's talk about operational efficiency, doing more with less, doing less work and achieving the same outcome kind of conversation.

10:41Colin Hung: So there was a lot of talk around technologies that enabled that kind of efficiency, which, of course, almost 100 % of that was based around some form of AI to do it. But that was the kind of talk. And then a lot more focus, actually, as well around RCM related tools. So if you were in the RCM space, the revenue cycle management space, that is one of the hotter areas in my mind in health care right now because it is so directly tied to revenue and income for the providers. And so there's a big focus in that area of healthcare technology. Very interesting. I also think, you know, just double clicking on your point about AI is that it's not obvious if we're thinking about the emergence of generative AI, what, three years ago now, four years, it's three years or four years, whatever it is.

11:28Four years, yeah. Yeah, it's not that long ago, right? There's lots of excitement about the potential. And particularly when you apply it to medicine, it's always, you know, the early conversations who's worried about sort of curing diseases and the impact that it's going to have on patient experience and physician experience. But now it's laser focused, to your point, on financial impact, which is a little disappointing, but it's what sells.

11:54Colin Hung: I guess it's what sells. Because I think a year ago, we had one of the top analysts from class on the show. And the way he was describing it was that buyers were basically had sort of like there were two streams of buying. There was AI, which was its own separate decision investment. And then the other investments was whatever the investment is, it had to have a clear ROI and a clear payback within a short period of time. It didn't matter what it was. And we certainly see that with clients that we've worked with over the last couple of years is that last year I said, like, you know, selling the value of AI got you results.

12:35And if you weren't selling AI, if you didn't have an absolutely crystal clear ROI and payback story, you could get people interested in what you're doing, but you could not, you know, it was really hard to convert enough pipeline.

12:48Colin Hung: And I think you're spot on. I would add to that and say that it was a big noticeable thing, not to make this about AI, but I noticed definitely a maturing in the way people were speaking about AI. Like there was, people understood the difference between genitive AI and agentic AI. You know, even a year ago, I don't think most people would have known the difference or what the, you know, what both were able to do or not do. But also I think, you know, we're exiting the phase where people are looking at AI separately in healthcare. Like it used to be thought of as, hey, I'm going to have to buy an AI tool and implement it myself and attach it to all these systems.

13:23Colin Hung: Well, fast forward six months, and now every backend system in healthcare has baked in their own AI. So you're essentially saying, well, why do I need to, I don't need to go and buy an AI engine for myself. It's already baked into my EHR, my lab system, my HR system, my financial system. It's in there. It's both a good thing and a bad thing because now it's like, well, wait a minute, I got six AIs in here. I don't know. And maybe they're not compatible. Who created these things? But there's definitely a maturing of the way people talking about AI. Whereas before it was like, I'm buying an AI tool.

13:57Colin Hung: That talk has almost gone away. It's more like, okay, how are you, my vendor that I'm working with, how am I partner? How are you leveraging AI for me? As opposed to them using it themselves. Do you feel that because of that, sort of it's become harder and harder for companies to differentiate? Yeah, I think so. And I think this is where it's becoming very interesting to me to observe this. When you bake AI in and it becomes part of the furniture, it's still, the AI is still so new where it's not all equal. Like one vendor's AI is very different than another vendor's AI right now, even though it's behind the scenes and the company and the buyer can't tell.

14:36Colin Hung: Can you get a bit more specific on that? Well, sure. So an example, a big example. So Epic, an EHR company, Meditech, Oracle, they all have AI that behind the scenes does stuff. And I say stuff. Everything from they've got their own AI ascribing tools that listen for the conversations and translate those into notes. They've got tools that can look and summarize the notes and give you a little summary. All those kinds of things are now baked into the EHR, whereas before there was a worry where do I have to buy Anthropic myself in order to do this kind of stuff. Well, Meditech has an AI built with a partner that they leverage and white label into their own.

15:17Colin Hung: Oracle used their own because Oracle AI. Meditech uses their own, I think. It's unclear, but I think they use their own. So you look at that and go, well, who built, like no one asks, people are starting to ask the question, but this is still relatively new, that I just trust right now, most buyers just trust, well, I think the AI underneath Epic is good, and I think the one under Meditech is good, but then you move to your lab system, which maybe isn't from Epic or isn't from Meditech, and you go, well, that one has an AI too. And, oh, my RCM system has an AI and my patient communications tool has an AI and everybody's used somebody or maybe they built their own.

15:59Colin Hung: But the question I think that's starting to percolate is, well, what did you build that on? And what did you train that on? And is your AI as good as this other AI? Because all AI today is not created equal, right? We're still so new. So I think that's really gotten people really thinking about it. And that's why I'm seeing some conversations now emerge around AI governance, AI transparency. People want to know. Don't tell me this is a black box of AI. I want to know, like, how did you train this? What did you train this on? How are you maintaining this? Et cetera. I'm curious because I was having this conversation with a client in the last month, which is so many of the companies, you know, putting AI in the headline and not necessarily the sort of a company lockup, the company sort of tagline, but it's like, when you wander around the shows, it's the big banner has AI or a message associated with it.

16:55And there's not a lot of differentiation. I mean, you could almost like swap logos around and you wouldn't notice that you did it. I'm curious, it's like, you know, on your travels and I know you went to Australia recently too. So you, so if you can maybe provide a global perspective, it's like, is there any companies that was made used to go, oh, wow, that is a different, that really got my attention. That's a different take.

17:19Colin Hung: Yeah, there are a few. There are a few in sort of different categories. I think there are some that have deployed, that are deploying AI in very meaningful ways, right? So a good example of this kind of category of AI is people who are deploying AI to help hospitals and healthcare providers manage their faxes. So you think about that and go, faxes? We shouldn't have it, right? I get it. But there's still a lot of them flying around. And it takes an immense amount of manual effort to look at a fax, even if it's digital, to decide where it should go, who it should go to, what information is important or not, and so on and so forth.

17:59Colin Hung: Well, now a lot of companies, eClinicalWorks, Meditech, Epic, all of these folks have made, have applied AI to that fax queue and are saying, hey, listen, we can actually read the fax. It's all electronic. And, you know, I can 90 % figure out where this is supposed to go. And so instead of you having to look through all of this and read the whole thing, here's the summary and you can just look at it and say, yep, that's right, go ahead. That's a huge savings and a very smart deployment of AI. But it's so low tech, like in terms of like, who cares about faxes? But it's so needed. And it's funny, it almost was like a throwaway at first from these companies to say, well, we did this.

18:37Colin Hung: But it's what customers wanted. They're like, oh, that's a big time saving. I want to buy that. Versus somebody who's saying, hey, I can help you using AI. I can build a amazing patient journey that will guide them through their care plan. Noble. Awesome. One day we'll get there. But at most hospitals and most buyers I spoke to, they're like, yeah, that's great. I'm not, I don't need that right now. I got bigger fish to fry than that. That's not a problem I'm looking to solve today. And so I think that's where I put the other side of AI, to your point, undifferentiated. Like, yes, sounds great, but it doesn't really help me today.

19:14Colin Hung: So therefore I'm not really going to buy it. It's a very specific use case. And it could be like a gateway use case, right? So it's something which is you use that to get in the door and to solve more problems once you build a relationship. Where do you think the gap is widest between what companies are promoting and what the buyers are saying we actually want? Well, I think I hinted at it just by the last answer there. I think where what buyers want is something tangible, something that will give them a return or at least relief almost immediately. And so I think they're looking, buyers are looking for something very practical.

19:50Colin Hung: And I think that's both a function of the economy because they're being asked by their executive teams to say, listen, I'm not spending a dollar unless I know I can save two, right? Like, and it's got to be pretty quick. Don't tell me it's a five-year payback. But also I think people, because AI is changing so quickly these days and it's unclear who the winners or losers are going to be, whether that's, you know, a standalone AI tool like Anthropic or whether it's Claude or whether it's something that's baked into my EHR or baked into some legacy tools that I have. I think a lot of people are like, I'm not willing to bet that far.

20:22Colin Hung: I can't see the five-year horizon of AI. No one can. So you know what? I'm going to focus on something that's more short-term, something tangible I can go for. And so I think that's the disjunct is that there are some areas of healthcare where it's unclear the benefit of AI. It's unclear how much delta I'm getting by deploying technology in that space versus something that's closer and nearer term. So I think the biggest gap is where people make claims that, oh, AI can help build a great care plan or can really help you make clinical decision support, all those things. I think people are like, yeah, that's cool in concept.

21:02Colin Hung: But to actually implement this is going to take me a long time. And even on top of it implementing, I'd have to put enough checks and balances in place that maybe negates the effect of the AI. Like if I'm going to implement clinical decision support, I can't imagine anyone's just going to let that run and have no check. There's going to be some clinician at the other end of it going, well, I got to double check what the AI recommended. And then I, you know, and then before I let it go, and you go, well, wait a minute, I've just introduced more another step in a process. I let the machine make the decision, and then I got to have someone check what the machine was telling me.

21:37Colin Hung: Why, right? So versus, okay, like have the facts go into the right, write a patient record, then that's a fairly low risk type of if i get it wrong well i can just attach it to the right one if i see that's a mistake right yeah so i think that's what people are now kind of realizing is that ai can introduce a lot of things and so that's where i think the biggest gap comes into place so i think some organizations are kind of reaching too far of yes your technology maybe one day can do this but it's not really what the buyers want hey adam here uh quick little chat about something we do at Health Launchpad that might be useful to you.

22:16Colin just told us something every health tech marketers needs to sit with. Buyers can't tell one vendor's AI messaging from another's anymore. Same claims, same buzzwords, same booth banners. We help B2B health tech companies find the one thing that's actually true and actually different about what they do and build campaigns around that instead of just another AI headlines that blends into the noise. If your pipeline is stalling because your message sounds like everyone else's, that's a Health Launchpad conversation we'd like you to have. Reach out to us at Health Launchpad through healthlaunchpad.com and let's help you fix that before your next conference.

23:02What do you think companies are not saying that they should be? Where are they kind of missing the mark in terms of what buyers actually want them to be talking about?

23:13Colin Hung: Yeah, that's a good question. So I think a couple of things. One, I do think that we're not spending enough, vendors are not spending enough time talking about their security, good and bad. Because I think even though we haven't mentioned it in this call yet, that's an important consideration for people because we've just seen the increase in threats and attacks on healthcare. We're a soft target, right? So I think vendors should be talking about their security protocols, what they put in place, how they've hardened their own systems and layers and things, because I think that will give buyers more confidence.

23:49Colin Hung: So I found that the vendors that do make, I don't say make that front and center, but who don't shy away from talking about that, who do show those kinds of certifications and things and have meaningful processes behind their security tend to do a little bit better. They seem to be winning. Their deals don't seem to be as long. Let me put it that way. Now, it's anecdotal. I don't have 100 % proof, but I feel that that level of transparency and talking about that can help you. And that's something not a lot of vendors talk about. I also think we're getting to the point where talking about how you've built your AI and how you're integrating it, who built it, how you trained it is going to become a competitive advantage.

24:27Colin Hung: If you're willing to disclose that and talk about it, I think people will be more at ease about it rather than it being a black box. Any companies you think that are really standing out, those sort of companies that you think, wow, these guys have broken out of the pack. And I realize it's an unfair question to ask you, but I'm just so curious to get your perspective because you see, boy, I mean, if you'll have been to 50 events this year, you'll have seen, I don't know, 25 ,000 vendors or 25 ,000 booths. what is it that's actually going to go, you know, when you look back at 2026, is that you're going to say, yeah, I remember that one.

25:08Colin Hung: That's another great question. I think some of the more interesting technologies that I've seen and that really stand out for me actually was at the tail end last year. Whenever I go to RSNA, the big radiology conference, and I see the technologies that are available there and what they're doing with AI, but other technologies to look at imaging, to address the radiology shortage that we have. We never have enough CT scanners and those kinds of, like, there's not enough of those. But the way they're optimizing, the way they're trying to decrease the amount of time spent reading anomalous ones, simplifying that workflow, to me, that stands out, A, because the technology is so cool, B, because the impact is so big.

25:48Colin Hung: Like, it is, and it's the gateway to further care, right? We all start with a scan, and then from there, you know how to diagnose and you know what the treatment is going to be. So I think everything in that area really stands out for me. And companies in that space, of course, like Canon, Philips, all those folks, but then smaller companies too that are doing things that are just awesome, like just some awesome stuff in that space. Yeah, it's very interesting. I mean, it's also, there aren't enough radiologists. And so anything that actually takes the burden off them to the busy work so they can focus on the higher quality work is hugely impactful.

26:29Colin Hung: Yeah. Yeah. I'm just curious. So looking forward, when you think about 2027, do you think there are any topics in 2027 that just aren't going to be on the, you know, people aren't going to be talking about next year? Well, I hope we're not talking about the economy next year. But I think that's faint hope, given what's going on. Now, I think what's interesting is, I think next year, I think we're still going to be talking about AI, for sure. But I think we're going to be not talking as much, unfortunately, about patient experience. I think we're going to be talking a lot more about patient acquisition, but I just think that the continued tough times, the continued cancellation of projects, we just aren't going to be focusing on how do we treat patients better and how do we treat our staff better.

27:13Colin Hung: I think, unfortunately, that's just, we're going to make them more efficient. We're going to make it easier to book an appointment because that helps our bottom line. But I don't think any of the other stuff around patient experience and those kinds of things are really going to get a lot of funding. Same with public health. I just think that that's an area we're not going to be seeing a lot of investment in 27. I do think, though, we are going to see a bit of an improvement in interoperability in 27, because I think we're starting to deploy AI in that area. There's been some very interesting discussions around, do we even need standards if AI can actually understand the inbound data?

27:49Colin Hung: Much like how it understands the facts, do I really need all these complicated APIs and tools to do interoperability when I can just say, hey, listen, I got a stream coming from this source. I'm just going to point some AI at it and just have it interpret what's coming at me rather than me having to build all these standards into it. It's an interesting time. Very interesting. Yeah. Wow. And so I think because of that, I think interoperability is actually going to improve in 27. I think we're going to have more discussions around it next year. So kind of closing question for you. If someone in health tech marketing skips every conference this year, like they just stayed home the whole time, What are they missing?

28:28Colin Hung: Other than the fantastic networking and the chance to see you in person, Adam. I think what they're missing is the undercurrent, right? Like I think what you miss by not going to a conference is you won't pick up on the realities of what is coming and what's on the agenda potentially for 27. So from the vendor side, I think what you're going to miss is, oh, you know what? agentic AI really is a thing, right? And I should start to talk about that now. Or this whole thing around AI transparency is becoming a more critical issue. Maybe I should start thinking about that. I think you miss those signals and you're playing catch up with other people who do see it and who do go.

29:10Colin Hung: Now, I got to say this, a lot of people who do go to conferences don't even pick up on those signals if they're not looking for them. But if you go, if you're observant, I think these are the things you kind of pick up on. As a buyer, as on the provider side, I think what you're missing is you are missing out on solutions to problems that you may not realize there's a solution for, right? Or may not realize that, oh man, like that would make a huge difference for my organization or my staff because you're not at that conference and realizing, oh, you know what? AI in the facts area, never thought about that.

29:43Colin Hung: Or AI for interoperability, never thought about that, right? You'll miss that opportunity because that's not happening in a webinar. That's not happening in people's newsletters. It's just something that somebody just mentions as a throwaway line in a presentation that triggers you to go, I want to explore that more. So I think that is what's missing. I think that's a great perspective. Now, before we say goodbye, two questions for you. One, how can people get in touch with you, follow what you do? And the second, what have you guys got coming up that you'd like people to know about? Oh, great questions.

30:20Colin Hung: Well, first of all, easiest way to find me personally is just on LinkedIn. So just callinhung, H-U-N-G, on LinkedIn. You can find me there. I post a lot. All the stories and things, all the conferences I go to are usually up there. So you can connect with me there. That's probably the easiest way. You can also find all our materials and all the coverage that we do at sway.health. That's sway with two A's,.health. Totally free. You can sign up for the newsletter. That's all I can have. I have a YouTube channel and newsletter and everything. And of course, healthcareittoday.com is where all the other stories are.

30:52Colin Hung: And then what have we got in store? Well, you know, we're on the verge of announcing our Sway Health Live 2027 event. Yay! It's scheduled for next year. So we're going to put that out there very soon to people and announce that. So we're very excited about that, along with next year's Sway Health Awards. We got those coming up and the call for speakers. And then, you know, on the other hand, you know, we're going to be at a lot of fall conferences. So please stop by, say hello, if you see us wandering around. those exhibit halls where we usually are, please stop us and say hi. I was going to ask you, which ones should people look out for you at?

31:25But it's actually quite easy to say, which ones are you not going to be at?

31:29Colin Hung: No, but the big ones for sure, like health, we'll be there at HLTH in Las Vegas. That's the big one, as well as RSNA in Chicago and so forth. So yeah, those are the things that are coming in the fall. And yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. Colin, thank you for being on the show. It's always a pleasure. Oh, thank you for having me, Adams. Always great to be here. Colin is such an insightful person and I was such a privilege to hear his perspective, particularly given all of the conversations that he has. I mean, the guy's, you know, he's a walking focus group in many regards. So I want to spend a minute talking about some of the key takeaways I got out of this episode.

32:14So number one, And this really is the big one. Buyers now demand proof of value in three to six months, not three to five year payback stories. If your pitch leans on long horizons, expect the deals to stall. Number two, AI has moved from a standalone purchase to something baked into every backend system, which means the real differentiator is no longer we have AI, it's how it was built, trained, and governed. Takeaway three, security transparency and AI governance are becoming quiet competitive advantages. Vendors willing to open up about how their systems are hardened and trained are closing deals faster, in Colin's opinion.

33:03Number four, the most impactful AI deployments right now aren't the ambitious ones. They're the unglamorous high-volume workflows like fax triage that have a real-time immediate impact. And last one, in 2027, watch for patient experience and public health investment to keep losing ground to efficiency and revenue cycle spend, while interoperability may actually get easier as AI reduces the need for rigid data standards. You can follow Colin Hung on LinkedIn and check out sway.health, that's S-W-A-A-Y.health, and also healthcareittoday.com to find out more about Colin and where he might be showing up next.

33:55And if your message sounds like everyone else's on the show floor, talk to us about how you can potentially break through. I'd love to have a chat with you about that. And last but not least, please do follow or subscribe to the Health Tech Marketing Show so you don't miss the next episode and leave us a rating if you will do. It means a lot and can make a real impact on getting this show to reach more people. Thank you for listening and see you on the next one.