Key Takeaways
AI agents often read your site and normalize your RFP responses before any human on the buying committee sees them.
Expect a 12–18 month cycle across value analysis, security, AI, clinical, and operational gates — any one can stop the deal.
In thin-margin systems, only hard-dollar ROI moves budgets; efficiency and experience claims don’t.
Peer networks (CHIME, the 229 Project, HIMSS) and LinkedIn beat cold email and paid channels.
I sat in on a buyer panel at Swaay.Health Live 2026 featuring three CIOs who buy healthcare technology for a living: Renee Fosberg of Emerson Health, Jeannette Currie of Cambridge Health Alliance, and Rebecca Woods, founder and CEO of Propelled Health Advisors. The session was moderated by John Lynn of Healthcare IT Today, and it was one of the most direct conversations I’ve heard about how health system buyers actually evaluate vendors today.
A few things came out of that room that every healthcare technology marketer should be paying attention to.
AI is already in the buying process, before you know it
Before a person on the buying committee ever opens your deck, an AI agent may have already read your website. CIOs are using ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and custom Gemini tools to research vendors, normalize RFP responses, and stress-test contract language. That means your positioning and proof points need to be structured and crawlable, not just persuasive to a human reader. Generative engine optimization isn’t a fringe SEO tactic anymore. It’s part of how your company gets a first look.
The buying cycle is long, and any one gate can stop it
Expect a 12- to 18-month cycle that runs through value analysis, a security review, an AI committee, and both clinical and operational stakeholders. Cambridge Health Alliance routes every purchase through a formal Value Analysis Management System plus a dedicated AI committee. Emerson Health has an ROI committee that has to confirm hard-dollar value, not just efficiency or experience gains. Any one of these groups can halt a deal, so vendors need materials built for each audience, not one generic pitch deck stretched across all of them.
Soft ROI does not clear the bar
In community and safety-net systems working with thin margins, efficiency claims and experience improvements don’t move budgets on their own. Renee Fosberg put it plainly: “I can’t take my time out of the budget.” Value has to connect to real revenue or hard cost reduction. Milestone-based payment structures and risk-sharing commercial models are gaining ground, especially for revenue-cycle and AI-enabled products, because they let the vendor share the risk of an unproven ROI claim instead of asking the buyer to take it on faith.
Peer networks beat every paid channel
CIOs compare notes through CHIME, the 229 Project, New England HIMSS, and Bluebird Leaders. Word of mouth is still the most powerful channel in healthcare IT, and LinkedIn has overtaken email as a discovery channel. Curated newsletters from Becker’s, CHIME, and 229 get opened. Cold email and cold InMail largely don’t. If your growth plan leans heavily on outbound sequences, this panel is a signal to rebalance toward peer credibility: customer advisory boards, named reference programs, and executive roundtables.
What earns a meeting, and what kills a deal
The panel was specific about behaviors that build trust and behaviors that end conversations before they start.
What works: researching the buyer’s environment before outreach, including their core systems (not every hospital runs Epic), leading with the buyer’s world instead of your logo, bringing named or blinded references with real ROI the buyer can carry into their own committee, and showing up with a clean security posture, meaning SOC 2, HITRUST, and signed BAAs rather than a HIPAA assertion. Jeannette Currie was direct about pacing: “Don’t make me drive the conversation.” Build the relationship first and save the product conversation for the third or fourth meeting.
What doesn’t work: pitching the product on the first call, opening with a logo-heavy slide instead of a real conversation, asking generic questions like “What keeps you up at night?”, assuming every system runs Epic, and criticizing a buyer’s current vendor or a competitor. Pulling an experienced sales team mid-cycle due to an internal reorg also does real damage to trust.
Content needs to match where the buyer actually is
The panel described two distinct content motions that need to run in parallel, not one funnel that tries to do both jobs at once.
In awareness mode, the buyer is still shaping the problem and doesn’t yet know if they need your category of solution. This calls for lightweight, peer-validated, story-driven content that’s easy to consume in about 30 seconds. Rebecca Woods summed up the attention span reality: “We’re in the TikTok era, where everything needs to be spit out in 30 seconds.” Short-form LinkedIn content built around a specific outcome for a specific organization will outperform a long-form whitepaper here.
In evaluation mode, the buyer is seriously assessing a category and ready to invest real time. This is where deep, ROI-grounded, reference-rich content earns its place: quantified claims, customer references, and math the buyer can bring to their own committee.
AI-enabled products face an added layer of scrutiny
Every panelist has built generative AI into how they evaluate vendors. Cambridge Health Alliance runs AI-enabled products through a framework called FAVES, which stands for fair, accurate, valid, equitable, and safe, in addition to standard security and procurement review. If your product touches AI, your marketing needs to treat fairness, transparency, model governance, and bias mitigation as core topics, not an FAQ item near the bottom of the page. It’s also worth remembering that some health systems deliberately choose not to activate AI features they already have access to. Don’t assume an AI capability is automatically a selling point until you understand the buyer’s governance posture.
Five moves for vendors selling into health systems
1. Structure content so AI agents can read it accurately, since your first impression may now be formed by a language model before a human sees your site.
2. Invest in peer credibility — through advisory boards, named references, and executive roundtables — over paid digital spend.
3. Do the homework on the buyer’s EHR, strategic priorities, and public statements before the first call.
4. Quantify every value claim in hard dollars wherever it’s credible to do so.
5. Make content shorter and more specific. Fewer ebooks, more real outcomes tied to real organizations.
The throughline across all of it: healthcare CIOs are buying with more scrutiny, more committees, and more AI-assisted research than ever, and the vendors who win are the ones who show up prepared for that reality instead of asking the buyer to adapt to a generic pitch.
Frequently asked questions
What is generative engine optimization, and why does it matter for health tech vendors?
It’s structuring your website and proof points so AI research tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini can read and represent them accurately. CIOs increasingly use these tools to research vendors, so an AI may form the first impression of your company before a human ever does.
How long is the health system buying cycle?
Typically 12 to 18 months, running through value analysis, a security review, an AI committee, and both clinical and operational stakeholders. Any single group can halt the deal, so vendors need materials tailored to each audience.
Why doesn’t soft ROI work with health system buyers?
Community and safety-net systems run on thin margins, so efficiency or experience gains rarely move budgets on their own. Value has to tie to real revenue or hard cost reduction — as one panelist put it, she can’t take her own time out of the budget.
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