Healthcare is under pressure from every direction. Budgets are tight, cyber threats are growing, and the promise of AI is running ahead of most organisations' ability to deliver on it. According to Digidentity, this new Gartner® publication maps out the five technology trends that healthcare CIOs need to prioritise this year.
"In 2026, healthcare provider CIOs face significant pressure to deliver digital value despite constrained IT budgets and resources. CIOs must prioritize five strategically interconnected technology trends — AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity, data-sharing technologies, and smart hospital operations — to address core industry challenges and lay the foundation for future innovation."
Source: Gartner®, "Top Technology Trends in Healthcare Providers for 2026," Gregg Pessin, 16 January 2026.
For us, those five trends are not independent items on a wish list. They are interconnected, and progress on one depends on getting the others right. These are Digidentity’s main takeaways:
The reality for most healthcare IT teams is a growing gap between what they are expected to deliver and the resources they have to do it. CIOs have to make sharp choices about where to invest, and those choices need to be grounded in a clear understanding of what each trend demands.
Healthcare is one of the most targeted industries for cyberattacks. Patient data is valuable, clinical systems are critical, and downtime has life-or-death consequences. For healthcare organisations, this means cybersecurity is no longer a cost centre to be minimised. It is a core operational priority that touches everything from patient safety to regulatory compliance.
Identity plays a central role here. Strong authentication, digital certificates, and verified access controls are the first line of defence. Knowing exactly who is accessing a system, and confirming they have the right to, is the foundation of any cybersecurity strategy.
The AI story in healthcare goes beyond chatbots and clinical decision support. When AI agents handle care delivery and back-office operations, the identity question becomes unavoidable. How do you verify that an AI agent is authorised to access patient records, process a claim, or make a clinical recommendation? The same principles that apply to verifying human identity, confirming who someone is and what they are permitted to do, now extend to AI agents.
The expansion of data-sharing ecosystems in healthcare depends on interoperability standards like FHIR, cloud-based platforms, and regulatory frameworks that mandate secure data exchange. But data sharing only works when every participant in the ecosystem can be trusted.
That means verified digital identities for healthcare professionals, organisations, and increasingly, the AI systems acting on their behalf. Digital certificates, qualified electronic signatures, and identity verification that meets regulatory standards are the building blocks of trustworthy data exchange.
At Digidentity, we provide the trust infrastructure that underpins secure digital interactions. Whether it is verifying the identity of a healthcare professional accessing a shared patient record, issuing digital certificates that prove an organisation's legitimacy, or building the identity layer that AI agents will need to operate securely, this is the work we do.
Digidentity believes the five trends Gartner identifies are all connected by a common thread: they all require trusted digital identity to work. Cloud migration needs secure access. Cybersecurity starts with authentication. AI agents need verifiable credentials. Data sharing needs verified participants. Smart hospital operations depend on all of the above.
Healthcare CIOs navigating these trends need partners who understand both the regulatory landscape and the technical infrastructure of digital identity.
Read the full Gartner® report here
Discover how Digidentity helps healthcare organisations build trust infrastructure, read more about our solutions.
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Gartner®, Top Technology Trends in Healthcare Providers for 2026, Gregg Pessin, 16 January 2026.