From Inspiration to Action—How to Instigate Change after the 2025 MUSE Inspire Conference

This year’s MUSE Inspire Conference at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, Texas, delivered exactly what healthcare IT leaders’ value most: a high-energy environment where MEDITECH professionals exchanged best practices and ideas, fostered meaningful connections, and engaged in collaborative learning with a healthy dose of Texas-style fun and camaraderie.

But the true value of MUSE isn’t just what we learned—it’s what happens next. You return with plenty of notes and ideas, yet the demands of day-to-day operations can make it easy to lose momentum. The real challenge lies in turning inspiration into action to drive meaningful improvements in areas such as patient care, revenue cycle efficiency, interoperability, and Expanse functionality.  

Looking back at my notes, here are my biggest takeaways from MUSE and a practical post-conference game plan to keep the momentum going.   

Takeaway #1: Don’t Delay the Transition to Expanse 2.2  

Game Plan: Assess your Current EHR state 

A major theme at MUSE was the transition to Expanse 2.2, which introduces enhanced functionalities aimed at streamlining workflows and improving patient care.  

| Get the 2.2 how-to guide.

A crucial next step is to assess your current EHR environment to develop an informed upgrade strategy.  An assessment provides key visibility into your organization’s current workflows, challenges, and opportunities—helping you establish benchmarks for success.   

Key Areas to Evaluate  

• Quality and Patient Safety: Are providers and clinical staff able to access accurate patient data efficiently, ensuring better decision-making? Could additional clinical decision support tools reduce errors and enhance outcomes?  

• Efficiency: Are there workflow bottlenecks, documentation challenges, or training gaps affecting productivity that an EHR assessment could help uncover and resolve? 

• Compliance and Reporting: Does your EHR support timely and accurate regulatory reporting?  

• Interoperability: How effectively does your system integrate with third-party apps, emerging AI technologies, and external health data sources?  
• Revenue Cycle Optimization: Could improving charge capture, billing automation, and claims processing enhance reimbursement?  

| Start optimizing your revenue cycle.

Takeaway #2: Build Trust and Improve Access to Clinical Data  

Data was a major discussion point this year, especially regarding EHR efficiency, AI-driven insights, and interoperability. Expanding data capabilities creates opportunities to reduce clinician burden and advance population health management.

Game Plan: Ensure Data Integrity and Evaluate Hosting Solutions 

To support safe and effective patient care, it is essential to strengthen data accuracy, reliability, and accessibility, ensuring providers have the information they need when they need it.  

Infrastructure matters, too. Take a careful look at your hosting costs, reliability and what it will take to recover from the unexpected. If you're running MEDITECH on-prem—whether it's Expanse or Magic—it’s worth having a cloud-based backup and failover plan in place. With disaster recovery in the cloud, you can get systems back up and running in just a few hours if something goes wrong. 

Takeaway #3: Evaluate Practical AI Solutions for Efficiency and Burnout Reduction 

AI was a standout topic, with discussions focusing on adoption, governance, and real-world use cases. Vendors showcased ambient clinical documentation, coding automation, and patient engagement products to integrate with Expanse. The end game with AI is to reduce staff burnout and boost efficiency for immediate workflow improvements, clinical documentation, and administrative tasks. 

Game Plan: Establish AI Governance & Pilot Thoughtfully 

The lessons we have learned over the decades of implementing EHRs and other healthcare technology hold true for AI tools and integrations.

We’re evaluating the various levels of impact AI projects have on the organization: 

• Patient care quality and outcomes, providers and staff satisfaction 

• Healthcare operations, from efficiency to return on investment 

• Cybersecurity risk and data integrity 

To mitigate risks and refine workflows, organizations should begin with small-scale pilots, carefully evaluating results before moving toward broader employment.  

Other Observations and Ideas 

Don’t let your MUSE Inspire experience fade into a folder of notes. By translating what you learned into action, you’ll maximize your investment and drive tangible improvements for your organization. 

• Debrief with Your Team: Share highlights from key sessions, perhaps even simulate presenting a MUSE-style talk to sharpen your knowledge. It could be great practice that could pave the way for an educational session next year.  
• Prioritize and Implement: Identify which concepts best align with your organization's goals and assign ownership with realistic timelines.  
• Start Small: Consider a focused review of areas like ED billing automation or best practice workflows, as discussed in the conference, to identify immediate opportunities for improvement. 
• Track Progress and Celebrate Wins: Set up simple metrics to monitor the impact of changes—whether it’s reduced documentation time, improved billing accuracy, or enhanced patient engagement. Celebrate early successes to keep the momentum. 
• Tap into the MUSE Community: Stay connected with peers and vendors you met at MUSE. Join follow-up webinars, pose questions to the user group, and subscribe to this blog to deepen your knowledge. 

Looking Ahead 

MUSE Inspire 2025 reaffirmed that collaboration, innovation, and knowledge sharing are the driving forces behind healthcare IT. As we settle back into our daily workflows, we must channel this inspiration into meaningful action, ensuring the progress sparked at MUSE leads to lasting improvements. 

Of course, the 42nd Annual MUSE Conference wouldn't have been complete without Alan Sherbinin, whose signature dry humor set an engaging tone for the event. Addressing an impressive audience of 342 facility representatives and 417 commercial attendees, Alan brought energy and levity to the opening session. Highlights included a playful, "Vanna White-style" game show—You Choose with MUSE—which had the audience laughing. 

A big thank you to Alan Sherbinin for making my first conference a memorable one!